Two cattle smugglers linked with 'terror money' killed in ambush in Assam, 4 policemen injured

Guwahati: Two cattle smugglers with links to terror money were killed in an ambush by suspected terrorists in the wee hours on Tuesday in Kokhrajhar's Gossaigoan subdivision, Assam police sources said.

They said four police personnel were also injured in the incident. Akbar Banjara and Salman Banjara were arrested from Meerut in connection with a case in Gossaigaon Police Station, according to the information given by SP kokrajhar.

Assam CMO sources said that during the course of investigation of the accused in police custody, information came out regarding the smuggling of the cattle from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam to Bangladesh via Meghalaya and the money involved in the illegal trade.

The sources said some fundamentalist organisations as well as Pakistan ISI were also involved in the illegal trade and "were getting a huge chunk of money".

This illegal money, the sources said, is used for anti-India campaign by ISI and fundamentalist organisations and the illegal money acquired through the illegal trade is given for terror funding.

The sources said the arrested persons disclosed that a huge amount of the illegal trade is distributed to the banned outfits - NDFB ,KLO and other militant organizations of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and some extremist organizations of Meghalaya.

They said that for identifying the routes of cattle smuggling through the Sankosh river bordering Kokrajhar district in Assam and Bhutan, both arrested accused persons were taken along with the police party towards the Jamduar side on Tuesday. Around 1.15 am on Tuesday, the vehicles of the police party came under the ambush of suspected terrorists near Jamduar.

The sources said that the terrorists had kept tree stems across the road for blocking vehicles. They said the police team immediately took line position and started firing towards the terrorists but the arrested accused persons could not get down from the vehicle and sustained bullet injuries.

The exchange of fire lasted for about 10 to 12 minutes. The sources said the police party evacuated the injured accused persons from the vehicle when the firing stopped sensing no danger. They were shifted to the Soraibil PHC by another vehicle.

On reaching the hospital, doctors declared both of them "brought dead". Four police personnel sustained bullet injuries in the ambush, the sources said.

In the search operation, police recovered an AK 47 rifle with 2 magazines, 35 rounds of live ammunition and 28 rounds of fired empty cases.

Sources said illegal hawala transactions in the form of hundis and gold also need to be investigated properly to find out the gamut of the illegal trade and money exchanging hands. (ANI)