Garo rebels kill leader, decamp with booty
TURA: South Garo Hills police have retrieved the bodies of a militant leader and his body guard who were gunned down by their own cadres following a dispute over sharing of extortion money running into several lakhs in remote Mahadeo region of Rongara.
Police recovered the badly mutilated bodies of the area commander of the A’chik National Liberation Army (ANLA) and his personal security officer who were apparently gunned down by his own men inside a hut in the village after a heated argument over sharing the loot.
“Some villagers from Mahadeo area informed Rongara police station that there had been gunfire in one village after an altercation between a group of militants over money and two persons were killed. Our team reached the spot and recovered two bodies on Monday,” informed district police chief Lakador Syiem.
The bodies were taken to Baghmara civil hospital for post-mortem and till the filing of this report no one had come forward to claim the bodies.
The villagers revealed to police that a six-member militant group heavily armed with AK rifles had descended on the village in Mahadeo on Sunday morning demanding that they be given shelter in a house. The hamlet of about a dozen houses is located over a km from the main road.
Mahadeo is 65 kms away from district headquarters Baghmara.
Seeing the militants’ arrival the owner of the house along with his wife vacated the place to give room for the armed ultras.
The militants apparently took rest for close to five hours but began to have an argument among themselves shortly past noon.
The issue was about the sharing of extortion money to the tune of over thirty lakhs of rupees.
The cadres had reportedly demanded that the money be distributed among themselves while the area commander had rejected their offer. The end result was a gun battle inside the house with the cadres on one side and the commander with his bodyguard on the other side.
Villagers in the hamlet fled as the gun battle raged inside the house.
By the time the firing had subsided the four militants had walked off into the jungle carrying two additional AK rifles belonging to their commander and bodyguard.
“The cadres wanted equal distribution while the commander wanted to hold on to the cash which ultimately led to the killing,” said SP Syiem.
It was a day later that news trickled in to Rongara police station about the incident.
When police teams arrived on the scene they found the bodies of the commander and his bodyguard lying on the floor with multiple gunshot wounds.
Both the commander and his gunman had their faces badly mutilated with several bullet wounds fired from close range.
“The face of the commander was beyond recognition given that there were as many as nine bullet wounds,” revealed police chief Syiem. As many as 14 empty shells of AK ammunition were recovered from the site of the killings.
The identity of the deceased militants was obtained from the knapsacks hurriedly left behind by the killers who had decamped with all the money that was in possession of their leader.
The commander was identified through an identity card as area commander Rinja A’chik (27 years) while his bodyguard is believed to be one Manson Sangma (27).
Five bags containing clothes and uniforms of the militants along with three identity cards of ANLA were recovered from the site along with one Government of India (EPIC) election identity card, a driving licence, one AK magazine with five live rounds of ammunition, three daggers, two used electronic detonators, a solar plate and battery together with over a dozen mobile sim cards.
The presence of ANLA militants in the area has surprised security forces given the remoteness of the area. The Mahadeo-Rongara-Siju-Balpakram region is known to be a stronghold of the ANVC-B outfit commandeered by its military chief Mukosh Marak. Seldom are other outfits, including ANLA, made its presence felt in the area.
Police do not rule out the possibility of the ANLA militants moving into the area from another location to escape police heat during operations. The four cadres who gunned down their own leader and accomplice were last heard heading towards nearby Balpakram national park.
