New Delhi: Highly placed sources in the Intelligence Bureau (IB) department have told News18 that the German assault rifle secured from an encounter site in Bastar was supplied to Maoists by North East insurgent groups.
"Based on our humanint and techint sources, and on our past knowledge about collaboration between the two insurgent groups, we are 99.99 per cent sure that an anti-India group based in North East has supplied Maoists with some sophisticated weaponry including assault rifles made in Germany," the source told News18.
It was on May 3 that security forces gunned down two Maoists in an encounter in Sukma's Kistaram area. In the search conducted at the end of the encounter, forces recovered a gun that they had never seen before.
"It looked like some variant of our locally designed and produced INSAS series. But when we showed the gun to experts, we found it to be an H&K (Heckler and Koch) series G3 assault rifle," said a senior police officer posted in Sukma.
In over three decades of armed conflict in the area, not once had a German made assault rifle been recovered from Bastar.
"We are still carrying out investigations. We have submitted our detailed findings to several agencies including the IB and are now awaiting their response," said Sukma Superintendent of Police Abhishek Meena.
The senior IB officer told News18 that it groups like ULFA (I) headed by Paresh Baruah and NDFB and NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K), have been known to have procured huge quantities of assault rifles made in Germany. This includes the HK series G3 and HK-33 assault rifles. Baruah is known to have been instrumental in introducing German weaponry illegally in the North East.
Asked whether money exchanged hands between North East insurgent groups and Maoists in return for the guns, the IB officer said information available with them did not point towards any financial transactions.
"There is a larger pattern of collaboration between various anti-India militias. The hand-over of guns is likely to be part of it. These groups work on the principle of enemy's-enemy-being-a-friend. We have information that the North East groups are using their camps to train Maoists as well."
In an unrelated development, West Bengal police has also unearthed a gun-smuggling racket within the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) in Barrackpore. Those arrested by police have admitted to supply 16 INSAS rifles and six Self Loading Rifles (SLRs) to the Maoists.
Chhattisgarh's own intelligence department has also found, through their own sources, availability of rocket launchers with the Maoists. The state intelligence reports have mentioned presence of Maoists armed with sophisticated rocket launchers, ready and waiting in Bijapur district to storm paramilitary camps.
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