Former rebel arrested in Meghalaya

A former rebel leader, whose organisation has signed peace pact with the Centre and the state government, was arrested in Meghalaya's East Garo Hills district for allegedly being involved in supplying sophisticated weapons to the proscribed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), police said today.
Acting on specific information, police arrested Jerome Momin, the former C-in-C of the Achik National Volunteer (ANVC) from his house in Williamnagar last evening in connection with a deal of Rs 17 lakh, the police official said.
"Jerome had sold three big weapons and ammunition at a cost of Rs 17 lakh to Sohan (the GNLA chief) recently. We have arrested him last night," Inspector General of Police (Operations) G H P Raju said.

He was under surveillance for quite some time so as to elicit credible information about his alleged illegal activities before picking him up for questioning, he said.
"Police found out from reliable sources that Jerome amassed wealth as C-in-C of disbanded ANVC and bought huge plots of lands in Deku area of South Garo Hills, flats in Guwahati and other places," Raju said.
The arrest followed an arms deal case registered in December last year in Williamnagar based on the confessions of three persons identified as Horishor T Sangma, Doron N Marak and Newsrang M Marak, who were arrested in connection with the case, Raju said.

The trio had confessed to the crime and also named Jerome as the person on whose behalf the weapons were kept, he said.
While the ANVC formally deposited weapons in December 2004, in July 2008 and again in December last year at Tura Police Reserve for safe custody and verification, the ANVC leader kept many illegal weapons undisclosed and hid them for future sale, according to the police.
"Police are yet to verify about the formal status of Jerome with the GNLA," Raju said.