TURA: Suspected militants of the Garo National Liberation Army killed a 53-year-old “police informer” in a remote village in South Garo Hills late on Tuesday night.
Police said Olget R Marak was shot at close range with an AK rifle and there were bullet injuries on his head, chest, legs and hand. South Garo Hills SP Abraham T Sangma said it was the handiwork of GNLA cadres.
The miscreants also left behind a note pinned to a tin sheet wall of a house that accused Marak of being a police collaborator and warned others of a similar fate.
Four armed rebels came knocking on the house of Marak at Oripur in Dambuk Aga, 20 km from Baghmara, around 2 am on Tuesday. The men said they did not know the place and asked Marak to show the way.
It was raining heavily but an unsuspecting Marak went with the men.
A few minutes later, his wife and other members of the family heard gunfire.
Marak’s bullet-riddled body was found near the main road, less than 1.5 km from the Dambuk international border.
“He was the father of the VEC secretary and had no links with police. It is a cold-blooded murder of an innocent man. The GNLA, particularly the outfit’s chief Sohan D Shira, is frustrated because they have been facing several setbacks at the hands of police in recent times,” said SP Sangma and mentioned how police busted a hideout of the group at Gare Ringri in Nangalbibra and killed a militant, a day earlier.
Another cadre of the GNLA also surrendered on Monday while Shira was said to have narrowly escaped a police hunt in the remote forests of Siju-Rongara recently.
This is not the first time that GNLA rebels have executed innocent civilians and branded them as either police informants or collaborators.
In June 2014, militants of the outfit had entered the thatched house of 34-year-old Josbina Sangma at Chokpot in South Garo Hills and shot her at point blank with an AK rifle in front of her four children and husband.
While the GNLA tried to justify its crime by accusing the victim of being a police collaborator, people in Garo Hills rose up in protest against the murder demanding stern action against the perpetrators.
It led to the GNLA being eroded from their strongholds and a few months later, the area commander of Chokpot, Kiljang Sangma alias Jangjang, who executed the young mother, was killed in a police encounter in the forests of Nengkra in East Garo Hills.
