Tripura militant held in Assam with ammunition

The Government Railway Police (GRP) has arrested a Tripura militant in Assam who planned to incite violence ahead of Independence Day and recovered a large quantity of ammunition from him, police said here on Sunday.

"During a routine checking, the GRP personnel arrested the militant identified as Naresh Chakma, 34, at Badarpur railway junction on Saturday. Over 600 cartridges were recovered from the extremist," a Tripura police official said.

While the police were checking Chakma's bags, his associate Biswajoy Chakma managed to escape.

"Biswajoy was also carrying some arms and huge ammunition. Both are residents of Natun Bazar village in Gomati district," the official said, adding that Naresh confessed to the GRP officials that they had planned to incite violence before Independence Day.

However, it is not yet clear if the militants belonged to the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT).

"Naresh also told the GRP interrogators that he along with Biswajoy were staying at a hideout in Comilla (eastern Bangladesh). On August 1, they entered India though the Meghalaya border and went to Dimapur (Nagaland) to purchase the bullets of different sophisticated arms from a Myanmar arms smuggler," the official said

NLFT cadres undergo arms training in several hideouts in Bangladesh, which shares a 1,880-km border with Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km).

Banned in 1997 by the Union Home Ministry, the outlawed outfit had sought Tripura's secession from India.

--IANS

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