During joint operations, carried out by several teams of the Indian Army and Assam Police, a huge cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from two locations in Assam’s BTAD region.
The recovery has been considered as a major success for the security forces ahead of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) polls, scheduled to be held on April 4.
“On March 17, based on intelligence inputs, multiple teams of Indian Army and Assam police conducted extensive search operations in Kokrajhar and Udalguri districts,” Guwahati-based defence PRO Lt Col P Khongsai said.
“The security forces busted huge cache of arms, ammunition and warlike stores which could have been used by anti-national elements to carry out violence in the upcoming BTAD elections,” the defence official said.
He informed that the “leads regarding information of cache were being worked upon since last month”.
On receipt of reliable information about the location of arms cache in the general area of Chirang Reserve Forest, and Bandarguri village, troops from Red Horn Division carried out extensive search operations in the general areas.
“On March 17, 2020, the joint team assisted by Army tracker dog, recovered caches at two different locations consisting heavy calibre arms, ammunition and other warlike stores belonging to unknown insurgent group,” claimed Lt Col Khongsai.
The major recovered items include factory-made AK rifles – 3; Grenade launcher M79 – 1; RPG – 1; country-made rifles – 11; pistols – 7; grenades – 60; assorted ammunition – 419 rounds; 2-inch mortar bombs – 5 and 1 satellite phone.
A large number of explosives including electronic detonators and Cordtex were also recovered.
“The success of the operation will go a long way in ensuring lasting peace in BTAD and Assam and thwart any nefarious designs of anti-national elements with upcoming BTC elections scheduled next month,” the defence PRO said.