Tura, Sept 15: West Garo Hills police has issued a statement mentioning about the deadly encounter that took place between police commandos and a heavily armed gunman at Daldagre road, near Sherwood School, on the night of Tuesday wherein the militant was shot dead.
West Garo Hills Superintendent of Police (SP), Vivekanand Singh Rathore released a press statement in which the identity of the gunman and his links with two armed outfits was revealed.
According to police, the gunman was one Robison R Marak of village Raksamgre under Tikrikilla police station in West Garo Hills. He was an over ground worker of Garo outfits- United A’chik Liberation Army (UALA) and A’chik Songna An’pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK), two armed rebel groups that operated in Garo Hills from 2014 to 2018 before they were decimated by counter-insurgency operations leading to mass surrenders.
“He was an overground worker of UALA and ASAK militant outfits. Thereafter, he was involved in criminal activities like extortion, kidnapping across the West Garo Hills district. The family of the deceased has been informed regarding the incident,” the SP said.
The encounter
The police chief said that they received credible information regarding the suspicious movement of unidentified persons with sophisticated weapons in and around the Daldagre locality.
It was based on these inputs that several check points or naka checking sprang up at different entry and exit points, he said.
“At around 7:30 PM a police team at one of the nakas located on the road leading to Daldagre neighborhood noticed a bike rider approaching from the Tura-Garobadha main road. On seeing the police team, the rider jumped off the bike and opened fire at the police team,” mentions Rathore.
It was in the retaliatory fire of the police team that the gunman was hit and killed.
Recoveries from encounter site
From the encounter site, police recovered the gunman’s AK-56 rifle with 19 rounds of ammunition in a magazine, 5 empty casings of AK bullets fired at police, and 20 empty cases of 9 mm ammo that belonged to police commandos who gave retaliatory fire from their service handguns.
The police have also confiscated a black color Bajaj Platina motorbike without any number plate that was used by the gunman killed in police action.
“Although our commandos had AK rifles we had to engage in control firing and using small arms because there were civilian houses around the site of the encounter,” he said.
