Over 1000 militants of 5 outfits lay down arms

Guwahati, Feb 24
Over 1,000 insurgents of five different militant groups of Assam laid down their arms before Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Tuesday.
The arms-laying ceremony was held at Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra in Guwahati.
A total of 1,040 insurgents laid down their arms before Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Assam DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) chief Tuliram Ronghang and other senior officials of the Assam Government, police and the Indian Army.
Huge number of arms and ammunition were laid down.
These insurgents belonged to five organisations -- the People's Democratic Council of Karbi Longri (PDCK), the Karbi Longri NC Hills Liberation (KLNLF), the Karbi People's Liberation Tiger (KPLT), the Kuki Liberation Front (KLF) and the United People's Liberation Army (UPLA). They were primarily operating in Assam's hills districts- Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong.
The insurgents, led by PDCK chief Ingti Kathar Songbijit (IK Songbijit), deposited 338 weapons including AK series rifles, a large number of ammunition, grenades, explosives, guns and pistols.
Over 1,000 insurgents laid down their arms.
On December 21 last year, 63 insurgents of four different militant groups had laid down their arms in Guwahati.
On January 23 last year, a total of 644 insurgents of eight militant groups had surrendered in Guwahati and deposited a huge cache of arms, ammunition and explosives. Since 2016, a large number of militants from different banned outfit groups have surrendered and deposited 1,034 arms, 17,728 rounds of ammunition, 513 grenades, 77 IEDs, 5,373 detonators, 111 kg of explosives and Rs 74.53 lakh in cash.
All these cadres, who have joined the mainstream, are being rehabilitated under the revised scheme of the Union Government for the rehabilitation of North East militants.
Under this scheme, each cadre is getting a stipend of Rs 6,000 per month and after completion of three years, each of them will receive Rs 4 lakh as one time grant money -- subject to good behaviour.
Meanwhile, in the last five years, security forces have arrested 1,914 insurgents and 70 extremists were killed during anti-insurgency operations in different parts of Assam.
According to the Assam Police, security forces arrested 570 extremists in 2016, 514 in 2017, 373 in 2018, 282 in 2019, 146 in 2020 and 29 this year so far.
During anti-insurgency operations, 31 extremists were killed in 2016, while security forces gunned down 19 insurgents in 2017, 11 in 2018, 2 in 2019, 7 in 2020.
India Today