TURA: A new camp set up by GNLA near Jakopgre village across River Simsang was busted on Tuesday morning.
A team of East Garo Hills commandoes raided the forests surrounding Jakopgre and Khakwagre, around 6 km from Williamnagar, after several armed rebels were spotted crossing Dorengkigre villages three days ago.
The search team found the new camp, where around 20 rebels were reportedly present, near Jakopgre around 6 am on Tuesday. A 30-minute gun battle followed. GNLA commander-in-chief Sohan D Shira was suspected to be there at the new camp.
This was allegedly the same group of rebels that had crossed over to Rongsakgre village, 30 km from Williamnagar, on the night of September 20. Police suspect that the same rebel group had orchestrated the abduction of two Rongram traders from Chinabat weekly market and the murder of a surrendered rebel at Rongsak last week. The traders are still missing.
This is the second GNLA camp that was busted in less than two months. The first GNLA training camp was busted on August 10.
The search team found a carbine rifle, which looked like an Israeli Uzi machine gun, made in China from the camp site, police said. It also found 75 detonators and paraphernalia for making explosives, and GNLA documents from inside the tent.
“Following the killing at Rongsak village and abduction from Chinabat, our commando units had been deployed at strategic locations to find the rebels. One of our teams spotted the group crossing Dorengkigre village three nights ago but could not take action because of the civilians present there. We raided the place early this (on Tuesday) morning and located the camp,” said district police chief Davis Nestell R Marak.
When asked about casualties on the GNLA side, the police said there were blood spots at the site of the encounter and “there could be a few casualties on the rebel side”.
Two additional teams of commandoes have been pressed into search operations following the encounter.
