TURA: Garo militant outfits like the Liberation of A’chik Elite Force (LAEF) are no longer dependent on imparting arms training for its cadres inside the forests of Garo Hills and are now dispatching them in groups all the way to Myanmar where Naga rebels from the NSCN-Khaplang enroll them in their jungle camps and provide them with the necessary expertise on guerilla warfare.
This revelation came to the fore with the surrender of one such trained cadre who gave himself up to police in North Garo Hills on Monday, just days after his return from that country.
Waljit M Sangma (24) of Medu Apal village in Bajengdoba region of North Garo Hills surrendered at Resubelpara. He had joined the LAEF in the month of August, last year.
Garo Hills police have obtained crucial evidence that the LAEF outfit, formed by a former police commando, had been regularly sending fresh recruits to Myanmar through the Nagaland route to undertake arms training in the NSCN-K camps.
The LAEF cadre Waljit was part of one such group which had undergone such training. Waljit was to join a command of the outfit in the Garo Hills region.
Police are not ruling out the presence of more foreign returnee cadres inside Garo Hills who are believed to have crossed back the Nagaland border sometime in the middle of November before making their way into Garo Hills through the normal travelling route.
Since they do not come back with arms these young boys are able to escape the police dragnet during routine security checks on public transport.
One of the key leaders of the group who arranged the foreign jaunt for the young recruits was LAEF chairman Kelwin Sangma who was nabbed by Assam Police in October this year, along with two cadres of the Tripura based National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) outfit.
Shortly after his arrest, Goalpara police nabbed Sengman D Momin alias Walma from Paharkata Agia. He confessed to being the general secretary of LAEF and a laptop used for printing the outfit’s demand notes was seized from his possession.
The twin arrests had a cascading effect on the rebel organization with three cadres surrendering before the North Garo Hills SP and Army officers of the 65 Red Horns division handing over a foreign made pistol and some ammunition.
Soon after, on December 2nd, army personnel nabbed three other LAEF militants from Kukurkata area of Goalpara and recovered two AK rifles and 30 rounds of ammunition. The arrested trio had also been trained by Naga rebels in Nagaland.
The LAEF outfit, formed by Late Peter Marak, a Meghalaya cop, had dropped out of the police radar after the death of its founder who was shot dead by police on August 22nd 2007 in East Garo Hills district. The killing had raised question marks on the police version which stated that Peter had been killed in a crossfire while leading police to a camp of LAEF in Kallak area of Williamnagar in the dead of night.
He had been arrested from Jorabat area of Assam while returning from Nagaland in a scorpio SUV on that same day.
The LAEF gained notoriety for orchestrating three simultaneous grenade attacks on civilian areas on the night of June 22nd of the same year. A grenade was lobbed inside the Tura super market resulting in the death of one civilian and injury to eleven others. They also lobbed a grenade on a shop in Nangalbibra and an empty field in Mendipather.
In December 2007 SWAT commandos shot dead two LAEF ultras in West Khasi Hills region but lost one of their own in the encounter.
