Imphal, November 2: Even as the security advisor to Manipur, Kuldiep Singh, has gone on record saying the sniper and the group involved in the killing of a sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) in Moreh along the Myanmar border have been identified and an all-out effort is underway to nab the culprits, highly-placed sources said the fatal attack was the handiwork of a newly set up group christened as People’s Protection Force (PPF).

Top police sources, who don’t want to be named, said on Thursday that the shooting of the police officer was executed under the supervision of a commander of a Kuki militant outfit currently under the Suspension of Operation (SoO), a tripartite ceasefire agreement signed with the state government and the Centre in 2008. Fresh Violence in Manipur: Police Open Fire in the Air After Mob Tries To Snatch Arms in Imphal, Curfew Relaxation Cancelled.

While Singh refused to reveal the identities of the people involved in the killing of the decorated police officer, sources said the PPF, based out of Moreh, had been planning to ambush the state police’s special commandos deployed to maintain law and order at the border town.

The source revealed that three days ahead of the sniper ambush that killed SDPO Chingtham Anand Kumar, PPF operatives and an apex Kuki civil body of Tengnoupal district engaged in a heated argument with the now deceased police officer over why the police personnel were clearing the Eastern Shine school ground for setting up a helipad.

The SDPO, along with 3rd Indian Reserve Battalion Commandant H. Balram and Superintendent of Police (Railways and Special Commandos) Th. Krishnatombi Singh, was supervising the clearance work of the school ground that started on October 26.

The sources alleged that after the heated exchange of words that took place on October 29, a co-founder of PPF, who is an ex-serviceman, along with a commander of Kuki National Army (KNA) took position near a Baptist church at Moreh, and shot the SDPO using a ‘brand-new’ sniper procured from Thailand border.

The sources further revealed that the attackers in Moreh are extorting money from the local residents to procure ammunition, sophisticated weapons, particularly snipers, and also to bring in master trainers from Myanmar into India to train Chin-Kuki youths as PPF volunteers. Manipur: Police Officer Killed After Being Shot by Militants in Kuki-Dominated Moreh Border Town.

They could manage to extort a whopping Rs 8.7 crore in the initial campaign, sources said. Meanwhile, the Chin-Kuki-Zo civil society organisations have been campaigning against the deployment of state security forces in the border town, staging protests and even blocking the national highway that connects Imphal with Moreh, rendering the town inaccessible by road.

As an alternative, choppers are being used to ferry state forces and other supplies in and out of Moreh. Immediately after the sniper ambush that killed the SDPO, additional reinforcement of state force reached the border town and sprang into action, detecting 32 illegal Myanmarese immigrants on the first day of a search operation on Wednesday.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 02, 2023 11:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).