World | India
Guwahati becoming rebels' arms bazaar
Guwahati turning is fast becoming a bazaar for trading arms and explosives with frontline separatist groups.
- IANS
- Published: 00:31 April 24, 2008
Guwahati: Assam's main city of Guwahati is turning out to be a flourishing bazaar for trading arms and explosives with frontline separatist groups from the northeast offering a ready market to scores of gunrunners, officials said.
Police and intelligence officials say weapons syndicates have of late stepped up their activities by using Guwahati to smuggle arms and explosives to at least 30-odd rebel armies operating in the region.
The reports got credence when police on Sunday seized 10 Programmable Time Explosive Devices from a cargo counter of a private transport operator in the heart of Guwahati.
A police official investigating the case said gunrunners brought in the explosive devices from Bangladesh via Meghalaya to Guwahati en route to eastern Assam.
"In recent months we had seized a large cache of weapons and other explosives in and around Guwahati. While some of the seized weapons were for the Ulfa (United Liberation Front of Asom), there are possibilities that some of the consignments could be for other militant outfits active in the northeast," an intelligence official said.
The porous international borders, thick with forests, along the northeastern states of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura have been used by the illegal weapons syndicate to smuggle small and medium arms and ammunition, besides explosives, to northeastern groups.
"Gunrunners are very much active and busy along the border areas with militant groups from the northeastern region being the main buyers," an army commander said.
India and Bangladesh share a 4,095-km-long border. Over 70 per cent of the border is unfenced. India shares a 1,600-km unfenced border with Myanmar.
The Bangladesh police in 2006 seized a huge cache of weapons from the Chittagong Hill Tracts with authorities of Both countries suspecting the consignment was meant for at least four separatist groups in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.
Bangladeshi authorities said the seizures were estimated between $4.5 million and $7 million and included around 20,000 automatic and semi automatic rifles, among them Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, hand grenades and other small arms.
Most of the weapons, including assault rifles, mortars, 40mm rocket launchers, pistols, revolvers and grenades come via the Arakans - a mountainous area in Myanmar - from parts of Thailand and Cambodia.
The arms consignments are often routed by sea through the Bay of Bengal to its destination in the Arakan forest in Myanmar, which is across Mizoram, before making their way to a myriad of rebel armies active in the northeast.
Share this article
News Editor's choice
-
Al Qaida returns to Manhattan
Trial in US federal court would be just the theatre Khalid Shaikh Mohammad wants
-
Obama's Tibet test
The US president's snub of the Dalai Lama could embolden China
-
What to expect at the Dubai Airshow
We preview what types of aircraft to expect at the Dubai Airshow
