Tura, Jan 30: Police in East Garo Hills district have unearthed a huge cache of AK rifle ammunition and powerful mortar shells from a forest near Chibilbang village of Rongjeng after an extensive search operation that began on Wednesday night and concluded early this morning.
The armaments, left concealed deep under the earth, consisted of two live rounds of mortar shells, a country made pistol and 428 rounds of live AK rifle ammunition.
“Based on reliable sources, we conducted a special operation in the Chibilbang village forest under Rongjeng police station, the search began at 10 O’clock in the night and approximately at 1 AM on January 30th we found the cache of arms and ammunition buried near a large tree in the suspected area,” informed A S Rynjah, East Garo Hills superintendent of police.
The weapons are believed to be from the erstwhile Garo militant group GNLA that once commanded a presence across vast swathes of East Garo Hills region. Its founder and commander in chief, Sohan D Shira, who was killed in a police operation in 2018 in the same district was known for concealing weapons, grenades and ammunition across various jungles of the region.
Since his death and subsequent surrender of the last members of the outfit, police in East Garo Hills have unearthed multiple cache of weapons in different forests of the region.
