TURA, FEB 26: The ‘self-styled’ commander-in-chief of Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) Sohan D Shira on Friday managed to escape during an operation at Pathalgre – Adogre area, around Durama range in Meghalaya’s East Garo Hills.
“Anticipating police attack on his (Shira) camp, he ran away leaving behind some of his personal belongings”, said GHP Raju, IG (operations). Shira had remained “elusive” for the past several months.
The police launched the attack at Pathalgre around 1:30 pm. “16 IEDs planted around the camp to hurt security forces were recovered and defused”, he said.
Yesterday afternoon police had recovered 30 IEDs from Durama range,near Williamnagar and later at night around 16 IEDs. In the last 24 hours, police have managed to recover 62 IEDs so far.
Raju said that counter insurgency operation has been intensified in Durama to neutralize GNLA and Ulfa (I) cadres holed up in the area. He said that the IEDs were recovered from different routes leading to villages. The IEDs were handmade and had explosive, which could have caused massive damage.
The intensive attacks under operation “Hailstorm – 3” against GNLA which began yesterday in the Durama range is aimed to flush out militants from the area, which is used as “safe heaven”.
The Durama range is highly dense with not much human habitation around. Since 1994, the militants are using the area as safe heaven. The A’chik National Volunteers Council (ANVC) used it as well. The outfit was disbanded in December 2014.
“Sohan is a former cadre of the ANVC and is aware that the area provides safety to militants but our forces are committed and determined to carry out extensive and persistent operation against GNLA to deny them safe heaven”, said Raju.
Earlier this month, the outfit had responded to the call of the government to come forward for peace talks.-From Our Correspondent
+ There are no comments
Add yours