From Our Correspondent
TURA: A major tragedy seems to have been averted with East Garo Hills police uncovering a GNLA hideout wherein 100 powerful detonators used for triggering IED blasts was recovered during an early morning raid on Friday near Kharkutta.
Police teams from East Garo Hills led by SWAT commando units and CRPF’s CoBRA was conducting a search operation of Arengdo village, near Kharkutta at 6:30 AM when they spotted the GNLA camp outside the village.
Before the police could move in the GNLA militants, in a group of six to eight, fired heavily on the approaching teams and the encounter lasted for 30 long minutes. The militants were desperately trying to prevent the security forces from getting their hands on the detonators, police learnt later.
In the melee the ultras escaped leaving behind the powerful detonators, a pistol and a large number of demand notes of the GNLA.
Police sources say that the detonators are sophisticated in nature with factory infused wires.
“All the militants needed to do was to just connect them to the improvised explosive devices for detonation. It was made that simple for them,” said police.
Police suspect the same detonators may have been used by the GNLA in their attempt to attack police at Siju area last week and earlier at Chokpot of South Garo Hills in August last year.
This is the second success for East Garo Hills police in a span of two days. On Thursday they had arrested two ultras belonging to the ULFA and the Rabha Vipers Army which has been instrumental in kidnappings along the Assam-Meghalaya border in Mendipather area. The kidnapping of a railway construction company project manager in January is suspected to be by the ULFA-RVA as also last week’s abduction of SBI AGM VK Gupta who remains untraced so far.
