India is planning to ask Myanmar to step-up "coordinated military operations" to flush out Indian insurgent groups operating from its soil, even as the Army on Friday launched intensive area domination patrols as well as search and destroy missions in Manipur, reports The Times of India on June 6.
Another decision taken in the aftermath of the ambush in the Chandel district of Manipur on Thursday, which killed 18 soldiers and injured a dozen others in the deadliest such attack in over three decades, is to bolster the "intelligence network" along the porous 1,643-km land border with Myanmar, said sources.
This came after Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag visited Manipur on Friday to review the internal security situation and discuss various counter-insurgency steps being undertaken with top operational commanders, including Eastern Army Command chief Lt-Gen M M S Rai and 3 Corps commander Lt-Gen Bipin Rawat.
The Indian and Myanmar armies have been conducting some coordinated operations along their border for over a decade now, especially after India began to provide regular military aid and training to Myanmar to counter China's deep strategic inroads into the country. But they have been undertaken in a piecemeal manner, without much concrete gains till now, says the newspaper.
  Indian intelligence officials say that a group of 40 to 50 rebels of three groups led by NSCN (Khaplang faction) commanders Starson Lamkang pulled off Thursday's ambush in Manipur's Chandel district.
“After the ambush , the rebels cross into Myanmar through Thapatin and are now lodged in a KYKL camp south of the Myanmar border town of Tamu. We have definite information on that,” said a top official of Indian military intelligence.
He said the rebels had scouted the site for an ambush by sending 3-4 rebel commanders in disguise.
“After they had liased with their informers about military movements, they decided on the site of the ambush. At the point, the larger rebel group heavily armed and accoutred moved into the hills by moving speedily across from their base in Myanmar,” the MI official said.
“That is how they evaded attention of the local villagers,” he said.
Most villagers along the Tengnoupal-New Samatal road where the ambush took place have fled to urban locations to avoid possible retribution from angry soldiers.
The villagers are Kuki tribespeople and they dont sympathise with the Naga and Manipuri rebels who pulled off the ambush.
“They are caught between the devil and the deep sea. Both the soldiers and the insurgents will trouble us,” local villager Phunsingh told NDTV.