On Thursday, a caravan of pickup trucks loaded with ammunition and arms rolled into the 1st Manipur Rifles compound in Imphal.

The weapons were being surrendered by the Arambai Tenggol, an armed Meitei group alleged to be at the forefront of the violence against the Kuki-Zomi community since May 2023, when ethnic clashes broke out in the state.

In the initial months of the ethnic conflict, over 6,000 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were looted from police stations and state armouries in Imphal and the hill districts of Manipur. Security experts have repeatedly flagged the challenge posed by arms finding their way into the hands of civilians. Till September, about 1,200 weapons looted from armouries had been recovered in security operations.

On February 20, newly appointed Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla urged all communities in the state to surrender the looted weapons and ammunition within seven days, adding that no punitive action would be taken against those who complied within the deadline. Similar calls from the state government had not yielded much results in the past.

This time, the ground appeared to have shifted. On the last day of the deadline, the Arambai Tenggol group surrendered 246 weapons, the largest such voluntary surrender of illegally held weapons so far in the state.

Observers from the state said this marked a significant step in de-escalation attempts in the strife-torn state. “This is a process that should have been taken long ago. It is 21 months late,” a member of a Meitei civil society group told Scroll. “But it is still a beginning.”

Security officials Scroll spoke to said that the dramatic surrender by Arambai Tenggol was a recognition of the changed reality.

With the resignation of N Biren Singh, accused of backing the militia through the conflict, the Meitei armed group now appears to be on shaky ground, they said. However, the officials also pointed out that the Arambai Tenggol is yet to return the sophisticated weapons in its possession.

Kuki-Zomi representatives remained sceptical, calling it merely a “diversion.”

Manipur security adviser Kuldiep Singh on Sunday told Scroll that over 4,000 arms have been recovered since the conflict broke out. It is not known how many of those are looted arms. “The police will be in a position to clarify. They are matching the surrendered weapons with the list of lost ones,” Singh said.

A demand, and a crackdown

On February 25, leaders of the Arambai Tenggol met the governor and put forward a set of conditions for the arms surrender. This included implementation of the National Register of Citizens in the state with 1951 as the base year, deportation of “all illegal immigrants to their native places”, construction of a fence along India’s border with Myanmar, amnesty for their members from legal action and Scheduled Tribe status for the Meitei community.

“If our terms are fulfilled, we will give them [the weapons] up…” Robin Mangang, the public relations officer of the group, told reporters.

However, the group’s aggressive stand appeared to be grandstanding.

Security officials told Scroll that a crackdown on armed groups and extortion gangs since the imposition of President’s rule in Manipur on February 13 had put it on the backfoot.

For example, on February 21, a day after the governor asked people to surrender weapons, the Assam Rifles detained several members of the Arambai Tenggol’s unit in Kakching district in Imphal valley.

“The whole AT 26 unit was picked up by the Assam Rifles and made to surrender their arms,” a senior central security force official posted in Imphal told Scroll. “Kakching is a hotbed of armed groups, with [Meitei militant groups] such as the PLA and UNLF, as well as the Arambai Tenggol being hyper active.”

A shadowy group of Meitei nationalists, the Arambai Tenggol swiftly rose in clout during the ethnic clashes in 2023, becoming almost a parallel power centre. In January 2024, they staged a remarkable show of strength at the Kangla Fort, as they summoned elected legislators and made them submit to their authority.

But the central official pointed out that the tables have been turned on the Arambai Tenggol.

“Their boss is gone,” the official said. “A few months ago, they had summoned the MLAs at Kangla Fort and slapped some of them. Now they are going to the governor with an application and request.”

A top Manipur police official had a similar assessment. “One of the biggest hurdles was that the former chief minister was not allowing us to work,” he said. “With his removal, police have been acting swiftly and more arms are getting seized.”

Many observers in Imphal valley also believe that the popularity and the political patronage of Arambai Tenggol has taken a hit since Biren Singh’s resignation.

“It was a foregone conclusion that the Arambai Tenggol was not a committed organisation of Meiteis,” the member of the Meitei civil society group quoted above said. “It was the handiwork of our former chief minister. Once that power collapses, everybody knows they are going to collapse as well.”

Unlike their bravado at the Kangla Fort, “they cannot now summon the governor to Kangla Fort and give them lectures. It is the other way around. It shows who is in control,” the member of the Meitei civil society group said.

He also claimed that the group is beset with infighting. “We have heard a lot of quarrels over the distribution of money extorted from the people,” the member of the Meitei civil society group said. “It’s in disarray,” he said.

Down, not out?

However, observers in the state say it would be hasty to write off the Arambai Tenggol. They believed that the group was still in possession of a substantial cache of arms.

A senior Manipur police official told Scroll that “only 40% of the weapons [they] surrendered are looted arms” and the “rest are country-made weapons.”

The senior central forces official said the group has mostly given up single-barrelled weapons, which are traditionally used for hunting. “The sophisticated arms are still with them,” said the official. “Arambai Tenggol cadres don’t enjoy much political immunity now. But they still have military power.”

The Arambai Tenggol, too, has hinted that its firepower remains intact.

After the surrender of arms, senior Arambai Tenggol leader, M Mangang, told reporters that according to their discussion with the government officials, “if Kukis attack us and there is loss of lives and properties of Meitei people, then, of course, Arambai Tenggol will retaliate.”

He also claimed that the Centre has agreed to consider a general amnesty to village volunteers of Arambai Tenggol – a euphemism used for the many armed civilians who have taken up arms to protect their community in Manipur. “Last but not the least, they agreed to the free movement of Arambai Tenggol in uniform,” Mangang said. Several Kuki-Zomi victims have reported being attacked by Arambai Tenggol cadres, dressed in their signature black T-shirts.

However, a security official said it was unlikely that such a demand would be agreed to. There has been no official statement from the governor’s office on this either.

Kuki-Zomi and Meitei reactions

The Meitei community has reacted cautiously to the surrender of arms by Arambai Tenggol.

“This is one of the most meaningful steps that Delhi has taken in the past 21 months by talking with Arambai Tenggol, convincing them to surrender arms and dismantling the check posts that were put up along the highways,” said an editor of an Imphal-based English daily. “These are positive steps.”

However, it would be too early to say whether Arambai Tenggol would lose its influence, the editor said. “It is a long shot to say anything about the relevance of Arambai Tenggol,” the editor said. “But they have to be careful not to break the law of the land,” he cautioned.

An Imphal-based Meitei advocate-cum-activist was sceptical. “It is just an eyewash,” the activist said. “The sophisticated arms are still with them. They have not submitted the arms which they showcase with pride on Facebook.”

Two Kuki-Zomi groups, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum and the Committee on Tribal Unity, issued a joint statement dismissing the surrender of weapons by Arambai Tenggol, calling it a move to “garner sympathy and legitimacy” and condemning the governor’s meeting with them.

“It is a diversion, a means to fool the public,” Janghaolun Haokip of Kuki Inpi Manipur, told Scroll. “Over 4,000 arms are out in the open and many more must have been smuggled from Myanmar along with Myanmar-based Meitei terrorist groups. We need accountability from both the central government and the governor of Manipur.”

An academic from the Zomi community believed that the step gives the Centre leverage over the Kuki-Zomi groups.

"While the Kuki-Zomi groups were the first to submit arms – though in minimal quantities – now that the Arambai Tenggol has surrendered on a much larger scale, the government has gained leverage,” he said. “This allows them to turn to the Kuki-Zomi groups and say, ‘Now you must surrender a bigger amount”.”

The academic said the step seems “another way to pressurize and force compliance under the guise of peace”. “Rather than a genuine step toward reconciliation, it feels more like a calculated push to control the narrative,” the academic said.

The Meitei civil society member pointed out that several questions still hang over the arms surrender drive. “What is going to happen with the missing guns? Are they going to land in the hands of hardened insurgents or those running extortion rackets? There are also many guns which are not looted from the armories. Where are they coming from and how are they going to deal with that?”

The governor has extended the deadline to surrender arms until 4 pm on March 6, 2025, following demands by people from both hill and valley areas.