Bangladeshis among five arrested in Mizoram

Five tribals, including two Bangladeshis, have been arrested in Mizoram and a huge cache of arms and ammunition recovered from them, a Border Security Force (BSF) officer said here Friday.

"BSF troopers along with Mizoram police, during a routine search operation of a vehicle on the Aizawl airport road Thursday, arrested the five Chakma tribal men," BSF spokesman Bhaskar Rawat told IANS.

Five sophisticated rifles, 5,100 round of live cartridges and 10 mobile phone sets were recovered from their possession, the BSF spokesman said.

He said Indian currencies worth Rs.60,000 and other indiscriminating documents were also recovered from the men.

The recovery of the arms has once again proved that Mizoram is being used as corridor by the arms peddler.

Earlier on several occasions, huge arms were recovered and foreign nationals were arrested in different parts of Mizoram, which shares unfenced international border of 404 km with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh.

Senior BSF and Mizoram police officials were interrogating the five men.

The arrested men are Jius Chakma, 28 and Sumitro Chakma, 48 resident of Rangamati in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh.

The other three -- Purnajoy Chakma, 45, Dipankar Chakma, 33 and Bijoy Chakma, 31 -- are inhabitant of Mamit district in Mizoram.

Jius Chakma confessed that he was an active member of Parbartya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samati (PCJSS).

PCJSS's armed wing Shanti Bahini, is demanding sovereign status for tribals in the CHT and had waged guerrilla warfare against the Bangladesh government for two decades until 1997.

In 1986, over 74,000 tribals took shelter in Tripura following violent attacks. The refugees returned to their homes after the peace accord was signed in 1997.