Manipur: 3 yrs after peace deal, insurgent group found selling weapons

📌 Summary:

• Security forces in Manipur recovered 67 weapons — including arms looted from state armouries — from the United National Liberation Front (Pambei), or UNLF(P), a valley-based insurgent group whose cadres were found selling the looted weapons.

• The UNLF(P) is the very group with which the Centre signed a peace agreement in 2023, making the discovery a sign of the accord's fragility.

• The haul, recovered over two days through a cordon-and-search operation at an unauthorised UNLF(P) camp at Lamdeng in Imphal West, included 27 AK-series weapons, 11 M-series rifles, four 9-mm pistols and one RPG-7.

• A joint team of Manipur Police, Assam Rifles and the CRPF carried out the operation; an exchange of fire took place when associates of two arrested cadres opened fire, and four UNLF(P) cadres were apprehended in all.

• Around 6,000 weapons were looted from state armouries during the ethnic conflict that began in May 2023; the arrested cadres admitted to earlier sales of looted arms on the instruction of a self-styled "Lance Corporal" of the outfit.

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 (internal security) — insurgency in the Northeast, the fragility of peace accords, the proliferation of looted weapons, and the challenge of restoring the State's monopoly over the legitimate use of force.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• The United National Liberation Front (UNLF) is the oldest valley-based (Meitei) insurgent group in Manipur; its Pambei faction signed a peace deal with the government in November 2023.

• Assam Rifles, the oldest paramilitary force in India, functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

🔑 Key Term: Peace agreement / Suspension of Operations — a negotiated arrangement under which an insurgent group halts armed activity, often confining cadres to designated camps, pending a political settlement.