More arms, ammo recovered in Habiganj forest
The Rapid Action Battalion today recovered more firearms and ammunition including machinegun barrel, bullets and tank destroying shells from Satchhari National Park in Chunarughat upazila of Habiganj.
The elite force members discovered three more bunkers inside the park as they are continuing the drive for the eighth consecutive day today, reports our Moulvibazar correspondent.
The Rab personnel recovered one machine gun barrel, 633 bullets of machine guns and rifles and 54 tank destroying shells from the three newly discovered bunkers, said Sana Shaminur Rahman, camp commander of Rab-9 in Shrimangal.
With this, the team recovered total seven bunkers, one rocket launcher, 222 pieces of 40mm rockets, 248 rocket chargers, four machine guns, five machine guns barrels and 12,987 bullets, saidAmulla Kumar Chowdhury, officer-in-charge of Chunarughat Police Station.
The team, however, could not arrest anyone in this connection.
Rab will organise a press briefing later in the day to inform about the details of their operation.
The recovered firearms and ammunition have been sent to Central Ammunition Depot in Dhaka and central ordnance factory in Gazipur, Rab official Sana said.
The reserve forest, about three kilometres off the Indian state of Tripura, was used as a route by Indian separatist groups for smuggling arms, according to the investigations conducted after the 2003 arms haul in Bogra.
The Rab first laid its hands on 184 anti-tank rocket shells (40mm) and 153 rocket charges on June 3 inside a bunker at a hillock of the forest.
Six more bunkers were found on that day but they were empty, Rab sources said. The next day law enforcers found two more bunkers piled with a cache of arms and ammunition.
Earlier, Rab Media Wing Director Habibur Rahman said the arms and ammunition recovered in the forest were apparently similar to those recovered in Chittagong in 2004 and Bogra in 2003.
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