Manipur security meeting: Vigil to be stepped up in vulnerable areas

IMPHAL, Dec 1: Security and police forces would be deployed at all vulnerable areas both in towns and rural areas of Manipur following stepped-up activities by unlawful organisations, official sources said on Sunday, reports PTI. The decision was taken at a high-level security meeting, presided over by Chief MInister Okram Ibobi Singh, which reviewed the law-and-order situation in the state, the sources said. The meeting, held on Saturday, and attended by high civil and security officials, also discussed the random checking of passers-by at many suspected places both in the hills and valley to detect movement of armed militants. The killing of a contractor here by unidentified gunmen, kidnapping of some irrigation and flood control department officials by Kuki militants and other recent crimes figured at the meeting, the sources said. A local contractor was called out of his house at Thengmeiband some days ago and shot dead in the high-security area here by some unidentified gunmen, the sources said adding, Kuki militants had also kidnapped some government officials from Sugnu-Chakpi area on November 28 and demanded a huge ransom. The kidnapped officials, whose number was not given by the sources, are still in the custody of the militants. The militants took them away at gun-point when they visited Sugnu-Chakpi area for a survey for the diverson of river Chakpi.