OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOKRAJHAR: Ipil Murmu, alias Rohit Murmu, Commander of the National Santhal Liberation Army (NSLA), the prime suspect of the IED blast on a railway track in Kokrajhar recently, who was eliminated in an encounter with police at Nadanguri Hills, Salakati, in Kokrajhar district on October 24 early in the morning, had I-cards and residential addresses in Assam and Jharkhand. A police team from Jharkhand has arrived in Kokrajhar to ascertain his details, as Murmu was wanted in Jharkhand for his involvement in subversive activities with the Maoist militants.
SSP Pushpraj Singh, while talking to media after the successful operation searching for Murmu, said that the neutralised militant was involved in bomb blasts in Jharkhand. He said that in October, he had carried out a blast on a railway track in Jharkhand and later fled to Assam and executed a similar blast in Kokrajhar. Singh also said that in Jharkhand, he was known as Rohit Murmu, while in Assam’s Kokrajhar district, particularly in Grahampur forest village under Kachugaon PS, he was known as Ipil Murmu and had residences in both Jharkhand and Assam.
Singh said that while he was a member of the militant organization National Santhali Liberation Army (NSLA) earlier, when the NSLA surrendered for peaceful dialogue, he refused to surrender and fled to Jharkhand, where he formed a new NSLA group and became its commander. Later, he established links with Maoist groups. He had been involved in subversive and violent activities in Jharkhand since 2015.
During the operation at Nadanguri Hills, there were around ten militants along with him who managed to escape from the scene. From the encounter site, police recovered one pistol and a grenade from the possession of the slain militant, Ipil Murmu.
It is learnt that after the elimination of Murmu, there remains no potential member of the militant outfit to lead the NSLA group in Kokrajhar.
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