 |
| Image used for representational purpose only |
Anti-Rohingya Myanmar militants held in Assam
11/12/2016
GUWAHATI: Assam Rifles
personnel have apprehended eight rebels of the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA), a
major insurgent group of Myanmar, in Mizoram and seized a huge cache of arms
and ammunition.
Defense sources told Express
that the rebels, who were in combat fatigues, were caught during an operation
near Tuithumnar in Lwangtlai district on Friday and handed over to the district
administration. The weapons seized from their possession included the
sophisticated M16 and AK56 rifles.
“Language is a problem and so
we couldn’t find out the reason for their infiltration. But what we understood
was that they are all members of the Arakan Liberation Army,” sources said.
The Arakan Liberation Army which
is active in Rakhine and Karen states of Myanmar, was founded in 1968. But the
arrests and imprisonment of a number of its leaders in the following months
that year led to its dissolution.
Between 1971 and 1972, some of
them were released and they re-established the outfit with the help of Karen
National Union.
The ALA campaigns on a
nationalist agenda and views the ethnic Rohingyas as illegal immigrants of
Bangladesh and has long been very hostile to them.
Myanmar has around 20 insurgent
groups. Over a dozen of them are in peace mode after signing ceasefire agreements
with the Myanmar government.