A correspondent
Silchar: In a pre-dawn shootout between a group of suspected Hmar ultras and a special team of the Cachar police, three militants under police custody were killed. The deadly gun battle happened on the hilly terrain of Bhuvan Hill in the Ganganagar area of Dholai. The militants killed in the crossfire were apprehended by the police in an auto rickshaw with sophisticated firearms earlier on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Cachar SP Nomal Mahatta informed the media that out of these three militants, two were from the Cachar district itself, while the other, identified as Joshua, was a resident of the Tipaimukh area of Churachandpur in Manipur. During the interrogation, the militants confessed that other members of the team to which they belonged were hiding at Bhuvan Hill, and they were planning a major subversive strike in Manipur.
Mahatta said that following secret information that a group of suspected Hmar militants had entered the Dholai area from a neighbouring state, the Cachar police intensified their vigil and finally apprehended three youths on Tuesday night along with firearms of the AK series. The militants, identified as Lallungwai, Lalbikung Hmar of Cachar, and Joshua of Manipur, confessed that other cadres of the outfit were hiding at Bhuvan. Accordingly, the police team, along with the militants, moved to Bhuvan Hill. As the police team reached there, the militants hiding in the dense forest of the hilly terrain started indiscriminate firing. The police team readily took their position and started to retaliate. Finally, the militants fled away. Mahatta said that though the apprehended militants were wearing bulletproof jackets and helmets provided by the police prior to the operation, they sustained bullet injuries. They, along with some other police personnel who sustained injuries, were first sent to a local health centre, then rushed to Silchar Medical College, where the attending doctors declared the militants dead.
Mahatta said the militants had admitted that the team was planning a major subversive strike in a neighbouring state. It was almost clear that the activities and planning of the Hmar outfits were linked with the current ethnic unrest in Manipur, and the Cachar district was being used as a passage for them, Mahatta indicated. He, however, warned that no such incident would be taken lightly by the Assam police.
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