Dhaka: Bangladesh`s elite anti-crime
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Friday said they suspect that the
huge ammunitions which were seized from a remote frontier
village in northern Sherpur earlier this month belonged to
India`s separatist group ULFA.
"We now suspect the ULFA operatives had kept the
ammunitions as they left the makeshift hideouts in the
frontier village" adjacent to India`s Meghalaya state, a RAB
spokesman told PTI.
Sherpur police on December 18 seized 13,680 rifle
bullets in an early morning raid at an abandoned village hut.
RAB officials said their investigations revealed that
unidentified people had threatened an octogenarian villager
against disclosure of the ammunition depot at the hut.
RAB`s comments came as the Daily Star newspaper
published a report that United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)
was active in the area despite intensive security campaigns by
Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies.
RAB`s intelligence wing chief Lt Col Ziaul Ahsan,
however, said the enhanced security clampdown, in line with
the incumbent government`s tough policy against the presence
of India`s separatist elements in Bangladesh territory, nearly
destroyed the ULFA network in north and northeastern
frontiers, bordering Assam and Meghalaya.
ULFA rebels fighting for a separate Assamese homeland
since 1979 but it apparently witnessed a setback in recent
years after several of its senior leaders were arrested.
Hasina promised not to allow Indian separatist
operatives to use Bangladesh soil ULFA chairman Arabinda
Rajkhowa was arrested in December 2009 reportedly from Dhaka
along with the group`s deputy military chief and eight others
who were reportedly handed over to the India authorities
subsequently.
PTI
