TURA: A group of villagers in East Garo Hills led the district police to four hideouts inside the forest across the Simsang on Wednesday from where a huge stock of ammunition belonging to the GNLA was unearthed.
The villagers, who were once staunch supporters of GNLA chief Sohan D Shira, coordinated with the police to locate the 3,505 live rounds of ammunition, which included 320 rounds of a Heavy Machine Gun, a powerful weapon that can take down a helicopter in mid air.
Sohan is known to have had two such guns in his possession and when alive used to display their photographs on social media.
Garo Hills police have been scouting the dense forests for the past three weeks in the hope of recovering the weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
Wednesday’s search was in the forests surrounding four villages — Dorengkigre, Chachatgre, Bawegre and Nengmandalgre — once strongholds of the slain GNLA chief.
With Shira no more, villagers came forward to help police in the search for the hidden armaments.
They successfully led police teams to two sites at Dorengkigre and one site each at Chachatgre and Nengmandalgre from where the weapons were unearthed. A plastic drum to store water was found neatly buried underground. Inside the sealed drum was a huge number of ammunition. At another site, they uncovered a military grade waterproof sheet that also contained ammunition and remote control devices.
The recovered items included 2,038 rounds of AK bullets, 60 rounds of 9 mm pistol, 1,087 rounds of 7.7 mm rounds, 320 rounds of HMG ammunition, 10 remote circuits for IED bombs, two remote controls, 16 charger clips and four ammunition boxes.
