TURA: South West Garo Hills police busted a hideout of the banned GNLA inside the region and shot dead a militant during a late night encounter on Wednesday.
Police teams raided Santogre village on Wednesday night following intelligence reports about the presence of a group of armed GNLA men numbering over half a dozen.
During the raid there was reportedly a heavy exchange of gunfire from both sides for quite some time during which one militant identified as Reading M Sangma was shot dead.
Another senior cadre of the group identified as Adil is also said to have sustained bullet injuries and holed up somewhere in the dense jungles surrounding the village for which police have launched a search operation to trace him out.
Police have recovered the body of the deceased militant Reading and also a 7.65 pistol with two live rounds and other items including a dairy containing phone numbers and the GNLA identity card of the killed militant.
The rebel group is said to have in their possession AK and other automatic rifles which were used to fire upon the advancing police party before they fled in the direction of Tochapara village after their comrade Reading fell to the police bullets. Empty ammo cases of 7.62 calibre and AK series have been recovered from the site of the encounter.
