TURA: Security forces are upping their ante as reports indicate that elusive GNLA chief Sohan D. Shira has started recruiting cadres to strengthen his fledging group.
Talking to The Shillong Times, Meghalaya DGP S.B Singh, who is in Garo Hills, informed that Sohan is making attempts to recruit more men after the setbacks in recent times.
The outfit was weakened after several GNLA cadres, including senior rebels, surrendered in the last few months and many were killed in firing with police.
The State police have already deployed Special Force-10 commandos and SWAT units in the dense forests of Garo Hills.
Intelligence sources said as many as 40 young men may have been recruited by GNLA in East Garo Hills in the recent months. The recruits are being trained in a jungle camp.
“After large scale surrender of his cadres and commanders he was left with around 20 men. He is desperate to strengthen his group and is trying to recruit and arm more cadres but our security teams are also on the lookout for him,” said the DGP.
Singh is holding meetings with the SPs of five Garo Hills districts to review operations in view of the 2018 polls. Former DGP and current security adviser to the State Government Rajiv Mehta is accompanying the police chief.
Police sources said Sohan Shira has moved his operations from the Durama Hills across Williamnagar into the densely forested area of Rongsu and the Balpakram national park region of South Garo Hills to avoid detection by security forces.
The vast Siju-Rongsu-Rongara-Balpakram belt is heavily forested and suitable for rebel hideouts.
The GNLA chief also has banned ULFA (Independent) commander Dristi Rajkhowa, who left his once ‘safe’ haven in neighbouring Bangladesh, in his group, the sources said.
“The security scenario in Bangladesh is not conducive for the ULFA leader to return,” said another senior officer of Meghalaya police.
Dristi is said to have brought four Bangladesh Garo ULFA cadres as his security team but one of them was killed recently in a police operation in West Khasi Hills.
The ULFA leader is crucial to both his own outfit and GNLA as he operated for more than a decade from Bangladesh overseeing safe houses and shipment of arms and cadres into India through the districts of Mymensingh, Sherpur, Netrakona and Sunamganj.
Both Sohan and Dristi have managed to evade the dragnet for years and moved to and fro the international border every time the chase got close.
