SOURCE: HT
Ahead of Independence Day celebrations in the state, Assam Police have recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition from several places in Udalguri district.
“Based on a source’s information, Guwahati Police conducted a search operation along with Udalguri Police at several places in Udalguri district and recovered huge numbers of arms, ammunition and explosives on Thursday night,” said a Assam Police release issued on Friday.
“These are suspected to belong to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) organization. Further investigation is on,” it added.
The recovered items include two AK-47 rifles, five AK-56 rifles, two M-16 rifles, seven 9mm pistols, 12 grenades, over 1250 rounds of ammunition, 1 air gun and around 20 kilogram of explosives.
In January this year, four factions of NDFB, the All Bodo Students Union and United Bodo People’s Organisation, who had been seeking a separate Bodoland state for decades, gave up their demand and signed a peace accord with the Centre.
Following the signing of the accord, over 3,000 NDFB cadres had laid down arms at two separate programmes. In March, two months after signing the peace accord, all four NDFB factions disbanded itself.
But the recovery of a large cache of arms and ammunition suggests that the NDFB factions may not have handed over all their arms after signing the peace deal, said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.
