http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/11/25/d3112501011.htm
The Daily Star, Tue. November 25, 2003
Our Correspondent, Khagrachhari
Army seized a high-profile haul of firearms and ammunition, including an antiaircraft machine-gun and a rocket launcher, in a raid on a haunt of terrorists deep into a forest in Khagrachhari Sunday night.
The terrorists melted into the thick forest under the cover of dark, leaving behind 12 firearms and huge ammunition, before the army demolished the hideout in Karangatali, army officials of Dighinala-Baghaihat zone said.
The raid that came amid firmed-up security watch on the region was described by senior army officials as their biggest success in the years since the end of three-decade bush war in 1997 after a landmark peace deal.
The haul is the latest in a series of busts by the army personnel of the zone.
The army had also demolished another terrorist hideout in an outlying hillside village last month and seized a small haul of firearms and ammunition from the terrorist remnants.
Sunday's seized firearms include an antiaircraft machine-gun, a rocket launcher, a 7.62mm light machine-gun with two magazines, an AK-47 rifle with two magazines, two 7.62mm Chinese rifles, a 5.56mm automatic rifle, a 7.62mm sniper rifle, a 7.62mm SLR, a 7.62mm bolt-action rifle with a magazine, two 7.62mm Chinese pistols, a 7.62mm machine-gun barrel and a commando knife.
The recovered ammunition are: 734 bullets of 7.62mm machinegun, 834 bullets of 7.62 rifle, 1,406 bullets of 5.56mm rifle, 22 bullets of 7.62mm pistol and 14 hand grenades.
At a press briefing, army officials said gang operatives have been active for years, making the hills hotbeds of terrorist activity.
The briefing over, the army officials showed the journalists the arms and ammunition.
Commander Zahurul Alam of Khagrachhari region said, "We are not sure who possessed those firearms. We are trying to find out."
Alam ordered more raids to seize all illegal firearms in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity and United People's Democratic Front have been fighting skirmishes in the wake of the peace accord.
Back in June, the police seized a truckload of over one lakh bullets and nearly 200 kilograms of explosives from a village in Bogra. The ammunition was apparently being smuggled into another country through Bangladesh.
The smugglers abandoned the truck close to a brick-kiln for unknown reasons.
The Bogra incident is still shrouded in mystery. Intelligence sources said the godfathers and the smugglers behind it remained out of the law enforcers' dragnet and were not named in the charge sheets under pressure from political high-ups.
The sources said smugglers and underground operatives were involved in transporting
illegal arms and ammunition in and out of the country for extremists.