Our Correspondent
Guwahati, January 11
The Sangbijit faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) suffered a body blow on Sunday when 12 of its cadres were apprehended by the police and the paramilitary forces.
The police said most of those apprehended were senior cadres. The outfit was responsible for the
December 23 carnage of the Adivasis in Kokrajhar and Sonitpur districts.“Twelve rebels were apprehended from three different places near the Indo-Bhutan border in Chirang district today (Sunday). The operations were carried out by the police, the CRPF and the SSB,” Inspector General of Police, LR Bishnoi, told Eastern Mirror.
He said those apprehended included a Central Council Member, a Deputy Commandant, the outfit’s Chirang district Platoon Commander, a second in command and three Section Commanders. Only one of them is an ordinary cadre, he said.
The personnel seized four AK-56 rifles, five pistols, one .303 rifle, one 315 rifle, four hand grenades, 12 magazines and 785 live cartridges from the cadres.
A self-styled ‘commander’ of the outfit was gunned down by the police and the SSB in an encounter in Kokrajhar on Saturday. The slain cadre, B Jablang, was the outfit’s Kokrajhar district Platoon Commander. He had led the attacks on the Adivasis in the district and was also involved in the killings of five Hindi-speaking people in the district last year.
Official sources said over 10,000 personnel of the Army and paramilitary forces had been fanned out to the affected districts to trace and nab the perpetrators of the crime. The personnel are relentlessly carrying out operations, especially along Assam’s borders with Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.
The sources said the operations would continue in the coming days. The police said NDFB chief IK Sangbijit was holed up in Myanmar while its ‘commander-in-chief’ Bidai was hiding in Bhutan.
