IMPHAL, June 10: Visitors were today left alarmed after a live bullet was found at Gate no 3 of the Assembly Complex on the first day of the 5th full budget session of the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly which started at 11am today.
It was found by a BSF personnel around 10:30 am before the Assembly session was about to begin.
The bullet was found lying near the gate No 3 which acts as the entrance of all duty officers of the Assembly Secretariat for the ongoing assembly session, visitors, reporters of the Directorate of Information & Public Relations and print & electronic media houses.
The practice of making the visitors and reporters enter through gate no 2 and body searched by the plain-clothed personnel of the Manipur Police as in the earlier sessions have been discontinued from this session. The visitors, Assembly staffs, reporters of DIPR and media houses were made to enter from Gate no 3 after being body searched by a large team of Border Security Forces.
Despite this, all the admitted individuals were issued a token in plain paper having a round seal in addition to the card previously issued by the Assembly Deputy Director (PRO) and the same token in plain paper was collected by the BSF personnel at the time of departure.
However, the fact that a live bullet was found amidst such a tight security arrangement with a heavy fully armed BSF personnel including a canine team has baffled all.
When IFP inquired on the incident with a Sub Inspector of the state Police on duty, he said that the bullet was 7.62 mm of a Self Loading Riffle (SLR) make and further added that it might have been dropped by one of the security personnel deployed in and around the Assembly campus.