TURA: A massive stockpile of arms and ammunitions left behind by slain GNLA Chief Sohan D Shira was recovered on Wednesday morning by East Garo Hills Police from deep inside the forests areas of Dorengkigre and Bawegre villages. Both villages are located across the Simsang River, about 15 kilometres from district headquarters Williamnagar.
Police with the help of villagers carried out searches from forests bordering the two villages and recovered the concealed weapons from various other locations.
“Some of the weapons were simply stashed in the bushes while others were buried in the ground. Villagers also joined in the search operation and some of the places where the weapons were concealed were revealed by them,” East Garo Hills Superintendent of Police (SP), R T G Momin said.
The recovered weapons include one 303 LMG, two AK rifles, one H&K rifle, four SBML barrels, five UBGL cells, five AK rifle magazines, two rockets (RPG), one 9mm magazine, one 9mm carbine magazine, one remote control, one signal booster, 12 numbers of IED remote circuits, 30 AK rifle bullets, eight pistols, 2 kgs of gelatin sticks, 66 numbers of electronic detonators and seven numbers of cleaning rods.
Police suspect that one of the recovered weapons, an AK is likely to have been taken away by the militants during an ambush on a police party.
“We are unable to say from which ambush the weapon was taken away. But going by the make and how it operates, it resembles the ones used by police and those used by the GNLA have a different mechanism,” the police chief said.
This would be the biggest haul of arms and ammunitions left behind by the GNLA that the police have been able to recover. Earlier, during various search operations police had recovered weapons left behind by the outfit from different separate locations across the Simsang river, soon after the killing of outfit chief, Sohan D Shira.