Ehsanul Haque Jasim with Faruk Mahmud,
Chunarughat Correspondent :
A day after the recovery of huge cache of illegal arms and ammunition, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) found more anti-tank rocket shells, machine guns, rocket launchers and ammunition from two other bunkers at Satchhari National Park in Chunarughat of Habiganj on Wednesday. RAB discovered total nine bunkers in the forest, which are located barely 3 kms from the border of India’s Tripura state.
During the Wednesday’s drive, they also unearthed a mini clinic in a bunker where they found medicines, saline, bandages, some medical books and treatment-related materials. Col Ziaul Ahsan, Additional Director General (Operations) of RAB who took part in the drive told The New Nation that those who have accumulated the arms and weapons, had taken primary treatment in the mini clinic.
The RAB recovered more eight rocket launchers, four machineguns, five barrels of machine guns and at least 1, 300 ammunition of machine guns and 11,667 bullets of different guns, said ATM Habibur Rahamn, Director of Media and Legal Wing of the RAB Headquarters. “We will be able to say whether the arms and the ammunitions are still fit for use or not after tests,” he said.
Earlier, on Tuesday, the RAB recovered at least 184 rocket launchers with 153 chargers, some anti-tank and mortar shells, more than 200 mortar shells and several other weapons from several bunkers out of the seven bunkers. The RAB started the drive on Sunday night. Personnel from the RAB Headquarters and RAB-9 are jointly conducting the drive with the help of a dog squad, a bomb disposal unit and along with large number of police.
The incident in the Satchhari forest is the single biggest case of arms seizure since 2004 Chittagong arms case and 2003 arms haul in Bogra. ATM Habibur Rahamn said that the recovery of arms and ammunition has similarity to that of 10-truck arms haul in Chittagong and the Bogra arms haul.
The drive was suspended in the afternoon on the day following heavy downpour. The law enforcers are yet to ascertain who stored the ammunition there, but they pointed fingers at Indian separatist groups, including National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), who used the bordering forest area for shelter and as a training camp in the past.
ATM Habibur Rahman said that the Indian separatist groups might have link with stocking arms.
Some local people of the forest area might have linkage with storage of illegal arms and ammunition in the jungles.
Kamrul Amin, SP of Habiganj, told The New Nation that the RAB or other law enforcing agencies could not find out the clue so far. Two cases were filed with Chunarughat Thana in this connection, he said adding RAB official Samiul Ahsan filed the cases on Wednesday.
The Indian separatist groups might have gathered the weapons in the forest as part of their struggle to establish a sovereign Assam and some other independent states in India. The Indian government banned ULFA in 1990 terming it as a terrorist organisation, while the United States Department of State lists it under ‘other groups of concern’.
The reserve forest of Satchhari was used as a route by Indian separatist groups for smuggling arms, investigations revealed following the 2003 arms haul in Bogra.
Col Ziaul Ahsan said they can’t give name of any specific group, as the recovered arms were wrapped in polythene and there was nothing written about the manufacturing country on the shells.
