B`deshi border guards bust ULFA hideout, seize arms

Anisur Rahman
Dhaka, Dec 25 (PTI) For a second time in a week,
Bangladeshi border guards claimed to have busted suspected
ULFA hideout close to the Indian border seizing mine
manufacturing equipment, radio sets and documents.
The hideout suspected to be a cache of the Indian
separatist groups was busted in the hilly forest areas on
Saturday 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 as
he was reached here by phone.
He said none could be arrested from the scene.
The development came just a day after elite anti-crime
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said they suspected United
Liberation Front of Asom (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 spokesman 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 ammo depot as they stored the
bullets at that hut at his home during a previous night as he
witnessed their activities. PTI