Army chief: Operations on in Manipur to recover arms looted from armouries

NEW DELHI: The Army is carrying out combing operations to recover weapons looted from armouries in Manipur, and will use force if required to get them back, Army chief General Manoj Pande said. He added that the forces have strict instructions to be “absolutely neutral” between the two warring ethnic communities.
Gen Pande said the Army and Assam Rifles had evacuated a “huge number” of the 36,000 people displaced in the state to safer places. “We also had 21,000 people who took shelter in our operating bases and posts,” the Army chief said.
On the China front, where the military confrontation in Ladakh has entered the fourth year, Gen Pande said the Army was maintaining a “very high level of operational preparedness” all along the Line of Actual Control.
Asked about rapid infrastructure build-up by China along the entire LAC, he said India too had constructed new roads, tunnels, bridges, airfields, advanced landing grounds and helipads as well as enhanced power and communications infrastructure on its side of the frontier.