Bangladeshi border guards bust ULFA hideout, seize arms

For a second time in a week, Bangladeshi border guards claimed to have busted a suspected United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) hideout close to the Indian border seizing mine manufacturing equipment, radio sets and propaganda material.

The hideout suspected to be that of separatist group ULFA which is active in Assam was busted in the hilly forest areas yesterday in northern frontier area of Sherpur, close to country's border with Meghalaya.

This is a second major arms haul from the same area, from where security forces recovered 13,680 bullets, a week back.

"BDR soldiers seized mine manufacturing equipments, a grenade, 97 bullets, some computer CDs, 19 (cell phone) SIM cards, five walkie-talkies, Indian rupees and ULFA documents in an abandoned state from hilly forests near Bankakura cluster village in Sherpur," a top police official told PTI over the phone.

He said no arrest has been made in the case.

The development came just a day after elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said they suspected ULFA to have left the huge ammunitions, which were seized, from the same area earlier this month.

"We now suspect the ULFA operatives had kept the ammunitions as they left the  makeshift hideouts in the frontier village," adjacent to India's Meghalaya state,  said to be a stronghold of the outfit, a RAB spokesperson told PTI.

Media reports earlier said ULFA were active in the area despite intensive security campaigns by Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies as they preferred the rugged area for their training, installing makeshift hideouts.

RAB's intelligence wing chief Lt Col Ziaul Ahsan, however, said the enhanced security clampdown, in line with the incumbent government's tough policy against the presence of India's separatist elements in Bangladesh territory, nearly destroyed the ULFA network in north and northeastern frontiers, bordering Assam and Meghalaya.

Sherpur police on December 18 seized 13,680 rifle bullets 57 packets, kept in eight jute bags, in an early morning raid at an abandoned village hut while.

RAB officials said their investigations revealed that unidentified people had threatened an octogenarian villager against disclosure of the ammunition depot as they stored the bullets at that hut at his home during a previous night as he witnessed their activities.