A total of 16 activists, including 14 of them belonging to banned Garo National Liberation Army and two from United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), today surrendered before Meghalaya Home Minister Roshan Warjri along with arms.
The self-styled Area Commander of GNLA, Pilliport D Shira, along with his two deputies and 11 others surrendered along with arms before state Home Minister Roshan Warjri and top officials at the Police headquarters here, a top police officer said.
Those who laid down arms also included two cadres of ULFA-Oprai Osom alias Horniath Rabha (29) and Sengbarth K Marak @ Nengman (30), Director General of Police Rajiv Mehta said.
A huge cache of arms and ammunition were also deposited by them during the surrender ceremony which include 4 AK rifles, an Insas, a carbine, 6 pistols, a grenade, 4 handsets, 9 AK magazines with 342 live rounds of ammunition, 2 Insas magazines with 89 rounds of ammunition, 1 carbine magazine with 25 rounds, 9 pistol magazines, 9mm with 37 round and 7.65 with 16 rounds besides 5 ID Cards and 19 Sim Cards.
This is the biggest achievement on the part of the home department in ensuring surrender of the notorious GNLA command based in North Garo Hills district adjoining Goalpara in Assam.
"If in this way an entire command is willing to give up arms, we hope that others will also shun violence and join the mainstream," Mehta said.
The DGP hailed the role played by church and NGO leaders in ensuring that the outlaws came forward for surrendering.
"The aim of the state government and the state police is to bring back peace in the Garo Hills region", he said.
GNLA publicity secretary Anurag S Sangma said, "We have decided to surrender as we wanted to return to mainstream and continue to lead our lives as before."
He also admitted that the main reasons for quitting the outfit was due to continued police operations including the deployment of the SF-10 commandos.
