Guwahati:
A huge cache of arms and ammunition, suspected to be of militant outfit National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), were recovered from a reserve forest in Assam’s Kokrajhar, on March 8.
The cache of arms was buried in Mahamaya Reserve Forest, the police said. The recovery includes two Israel-made UG rifles and four magazines, 22 pressure bombs with their caps and 16 HE36 hand grenades, special director general of police (BTR) LR Bishnoi told the press.
“The weapons were wrapped in plastic and were recovered from under the ground. We doubt that it belonged to old NDFB cadres and were buried probably around two years ago,” he said.
Bishnoi said that the recovery was made following intelligence inputs that weapons of the surrendered NDFB militants might be hidden at some places. “Last week, we got one such piece of information and started acting on that. We divided the police team in three teams under the supervision of the superintendent of police Thube Prateek Vijay Kumar to conduct the search operation,” Bishnoi said while giving details of the operations.
He further said that more such weapons are likely hidden in the area, and the operations will be on to unearth them to end the ‘weapon culture’ and bring in peace and development in the region.
Bishnoi pointed that in the past many such recoveries were made after foiling major terror attempts. “In 2020, one extremist was neutralised and 12 were arrested. We also recovered 97 different weapons, almost 1,500 ammunition and 44 grenades in that year,” he further said.
Likewise, in 2021, the Kokrajhar police continued the operations and neutralised two extremists and 10 others were arrested, Bishnoi revealed.
“We recovered 36 weapons, 17 grenades and 660 ammunition in 2021. This year also, such operations will continue till the time we recover all illegal weapons in Kokrajhar,” he added.