183 heavy, sophisticated arms recovered in a year

At the same time a huge number of small arms and ammunition were seized during raids in the dense forests of the hill district.

District law enforcement authority recently submitted a 'secret' report to the government on last one year's raids and recovery of the arms.

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Sources said most of the arms and ammunitions were recovered from Naikhongchhari, an area close to the border with Mayanmar. In 2003, Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in separate raids seized huge arms and ammunition from Baisari, Dochari, Chakdhala, Techari and Lembuchari areas of Naikhongchhari upazila.

Frequent recovery of heavy arms took the military experts by surprise. They were also worried at seeing some sophisticated arms and ammunition. A team of US arms experts visited Naikhongchhari to investigate the matter in the month of February of 2004.

Arms and ammunition recovered last year include AK-47 rifle, AK-22 rifle, M-16 rifle, M-79 rifle, land mine, high-powered grenade and rocket launcher.

The report submitted to the government provided a list of total arms and ammunition recovered between February last year and this February.

According to this list, 24,144 rounds of live ammunition of various types of arms were recovered.

It included 14,731 bullets of AK-47 rifle, 5,126 of pistol, 1,742 rounds of M-16 rifle, 2,000 of LMG and 270 rounds of machinegun. Besides, there was a list of 237 empty magazines of various types of arms and 14 barrels recovered from spots.

The report informed that total arms and ammunition recovered in the last one year were AK-47 rifle-27 pieces, AK-22 rifle-3 pieces, M-16 rifle-4 pieces, M-79 rifle-7 pieces, LMG-15 pieces, SMC-8 pieces, sten gun-4 pieces, 303 rifle-10 pieces, foreign made gun-5 pieces, pistol-2 pieces, 12-bored short gun-2 pieces, automatic rifle-1 piece, 22-bored rifle-3 pieces, Air rifle-3 pieces, pipe gun-2 pieces, air gun-3 pieces, rivolver-4 pieces, country-made gun-72 pieces, mine-33 pieces, rocket launcher-6 pieces, GF bomb-1 piec, grenade-1 piece, 60 mm mortar-2 pieces, two- inch mortar-2 pieces and 40 mm hand launcher-1 piece.