By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The State Police have further intensified operations in certain areas of Garo Hills to crack down the suspected GNLA militants, who gunned down five migrant coal labourers in South Garo Hills district recently.
Asserting that the massacre was the handiwork of the suspected Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), a senior police official on Friday said operations are in full swing to track down the GNLA militants who are terrorising people in Garo Hills.
On March 5 night, a group of around seven to 10 armed suspected GNLA cadres fired indiscriminately at the Goka coal dumping area killing five labourers and injuring one seriously.
Earlier, GNLA blamed the ANVC for the killing while the under-ceasefire militant outfit (ANVC) maintained that it was a move by the GNLA to derail its ongoing peace process with the Government while sources also did not rule out the involvement of a third party in the massacre.
“It is an ongoing battle and we hope to have an encounter soon with the militants,” police sources said while admitting that the massacre took place despite continuous anti-insurgency operations by huge number of security personnel in Garo Hills.
In November last year, suspected GNLA militants had shot dead two coal labourers in separate incidents before hurling grenades at a petrol pump in coal-rich Nangalbibra area of the district.