Huge arms haul from ULFA in Assam

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Tuesday October 31,2006:Guwahati, (India): Police in Assam Tuesday made one of the biggest arms seizures in recent years by arresting three dreaded rebels of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) while they were trying to smuggle weapons and explosives from Bangladesh. A police spokesman said the arms consignment was seized during a well-planned operation near Jorabat on the outskirts of Assam's main city of Guwahati. 'The three rebels were carrying the weapons and explosives in a vehicle bound for Guwahati from Shillong when they were intercepted by a team of police commandos,' a senior police official said. The arms haul includes eight M-20 pistols, 15 Austrian-make grenades, 450 rounds of ammunition of AK-47 assault rifles, and 18 M-20 pistol magazines, besides other explosives. 'This is by far the biggest arms haul in recent years. The rebels said during interrogations that the consignment came from Bangladesh and was meant for cadres to carry out attacks,' the official said. India's eastern frontiers, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, have become a flourishing arms bazaar with separatist groups from the northeast offering a ready market to scores of South Asian gunrunners. The porous international borders, thick with forests, along the northeastern states of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura have been used by an illegal weapons syndicate to smuggle small and medium arms and ammunition for at least 30-odd rebel armies operating in the region. India and Bangladesh shares a 4,095-km long border of which the northeastern states account for more than half. More than 70 percent of the border is unfenced with concrete pillars separating the two countries. The region's separatist groups have long purchased arms from the port town of Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh police last year seized a huge cache of weapons from the Chittagong Hill Tracts with both Indian and Bangladeshi authorities suspecting the consignment was meant for at least four separatist groups in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.