3 ULFA rebels held, smuggled arms seized

Syed Zarir Hussain  
The Pioneer: 1 November, 2006

Guwahati:  Police in Assam on Tuesday made one of the biggest arms seizures by arresting three dreaded rebels of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) while trying to smuggle in weapons and explosives from Bangladesh.

A police spokesman said the arms consignment was seized during a well-planned operation near Jorabat on the outskirts of Assam's main city of Guwahati.

"The three rebels were carrying the weapons and explosives in a vehicle bound for Guwahati from Shillong when they were intercepted by a team of police commandos," a senior police official said.

The arms haul includes eight M-20 pistols, 15 Austrian-make grenades, 450 rounds of ammunition of AK-47 assault rifles, and 18 M-20 pistol magazines, besides other explosives.

"This is by far the biggest arms haul in recent years and the rebels during interrogations said the consignment came from Bangladesh and was meant for cadres to carry out attacks," the official said.

India's eastern frontiers, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, have become a flourishing arms bazaar with separatist groups from the northeast offering a ready market to scores of South Asian gunrunners.

The porous international borders, thick with forests, along the north eastern States of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura, have been used by the illegal weapons syndicate to smuggle small and medium arms and ammunition to at least 30-odd rebel armies operating in the region.

India and Bangladesh shares a 4,095 kilometre-long border of which the northeastern States accounts for more than half. More than 70 per cent of the border is unfenced with concrete pillars separating the two countries.

The regions separatist groups have long purchased arms from the port town of Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh police last year seized a huge cache of weapons from the Chittagong Hill Tracts with both Indian and Bangladeshi authorities suspecting the consignment was meant for at least four separatist groups in Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland States.

Bangladeshi authorities said the seizure was estimated at US $4.5 million to $7 million and includes around 20,000 automatic and semi automatic rifles, among them Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, hand grenades and other small arms.