Missing VDF personnel found dead in Manipur

A manhunt operation by Manipur police for a VDF(Village Dense Force) personnel ended tragically after they recovered his dead body on Friday.
VDF Ningombam Premananda (37) from Okram Leikai in Thoubal district, a member of a strong team of Thoubal district police on poppy destruction mission went missing on the night of January 21 last from a camp of the Assam Rifles near Phaisi village under Chakpikarong police station in Chandel district after dinner.
With no clue to his whereabouts, a strong team of 130 personnel of the state police launched an intensified manhunt operation beginning from Thursday (February 2).
On day two of the operation, the police found the lifeless body of the VDF personnel at a place not so far away from Levanant village under Chakpikarong police station on Friday afternoon.
After spot examination by a forensic team of the state police from Imphal, the body was retrieved from the spot and brought to Imphal for necessary post-mortem before it was handed over to the family today, the police said.
The recovery of the dead body of the VDF personnel was at a time the state government had been investigating the disappearance of the VDF personnel on a poppy destruction mission at the hill range of Phaisi, a village close to the Indo-Myanmar border.
In the state legislative Assembly concluded on Friday, chief minister N Biren Singh told the house that the state government was examining if there was hands of the drug kingpins in the case of the missing VDF personnel and whether it was aimed at demoralizing police and other government agencies involved in the poppy destruction mission.
The state police, joining hands with authorities of state forest department and district administrations, have been conducting intensive poppy destruction drives across the hill districts of the state in the last few months as a part of the government’s war on drug 2.0 mission.