From Our Correspondent
TURA: West Garo Hills police busted a four-member group of the banned GNLA who were deputed to Tura and Rongram to extort money from businessmen at Tetengkol area on Monday night.
Police arrested the four militants after a vehicle (AS-25-A-2475) was intercepted at Tetengkol on a return from Rongram area during the evening hours. Police seized a 9mm pistol with two magazines and eight live ammunitions, demand notes, stamps, among others.
“We had intelligence inputs about their movement and serving of demand notes in Tura and Rongram. We were able to intercept them after their return from Rongram region,” said district police chief Mukesh Kr Singh.
The four arrested cadres are Shelpa A Sangma alias Gotak (23), Batush B Marak (23), Rohan Sangma (41) and Penaji D Sangma (31). While Shelpa A Sangma belonged to GNLA’s Philiport command of North Garo Hills, Batush Marak was deputed by area commander Jimmy of East Garo Hills, informed police after interrogating the four arrested cadres. The militants had also engaged a tailor to stitch several camouflage uniforms which were to be supplied to the GNLA group later.
GNLA cadres flee after encounter: Meanwhile in another incident, North Garo Hills police commandos raided a GNLA hideout of the Philliport command near Mendipather leading to a heavy exchange of fire on Tuesday afternoon and the recovery of a weapon.
Police team raided the militant hideout at Damringgre under Mendipather police station at around 1:15pm and the militants who were perched atop of a hillock opened indiscriminate fire from AK rifles.
“They emptied an entire magazine of AK ammo firing on our commandos from the hill above but failed to hit any of our boys,” said police chief Ricky Dkhar.
The militants abandoned their hideout in a hurry and police recovered a pistol with ammunition from the site.
