Security forces recover huge arms cache from Manipur hills
As many as 155 weapons were recovered including 8 AK series rifles, two INSAS, a sniper rifle, eight 9 mm pistols, 21 single-barreled guns, among others. Along with the weapons, the security forces also recovered 39 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), 13 hand grenades and over 1,600 assorted live ammunition, police said.
'These continued intelligence-led operations in the hill districts represent a major accomplishment for the Manipur Police, Assam Rifles and other security forces in their continued mission to restore peace, uphold public order, and safeguard the lives and property of citizens,' a senior police official said. ENS
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Names of 2 missing Malegaon blasts cases accused popped up during probe into Gauri Lankesh murder
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Based on the investigations through the sketches, there are suggestions that two of the mystery trainers who have not been identified or arrested may have been the missing Kalsangara and Dange, who may have attended the camps as trainers like their associate Suresh Nair. However, there were claims in Maharashtra in 2016 that the men were dead. Dange, a former RSS worker, is considered a bomb expert, has an Interpol red corner notice against him, and is on the most wanted list of the NIA along with Kalsangra and Amit Hakla. Dange and Kalsangara carry a Rs 10 lakh reward, and Amit alias Ashwini Chauhan carries a Rs 5 lakh reward on his head. Suresh Nair has been described in the Lankesh case documents as being present at camps in Jalna, and in Ahmedabad's Gujarat in 2015. Apart from Nair, one of the other 'external trainers' at the camps for the Sanatan Santha-linked recruits accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case has been identified as Pratap Hazra, who is linked to the right-wing Bhavani Sena outfit in West Bengal. He was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS in 2020 in connection with the Nalasapora terror case. A chargesheet filed in November 2018 by a Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka Police, which investigated the Gauri Lankesh murder, contains statements by three accused and four witnesses regarding the weapons training camps. SIT has arrested 17 people linked to various fringe right-wing groups in connection with the murder of Gauri Lankesh, which was allegedly coordinated by those formerly associated with Sanatan Sanstha, an affiliate of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, which allegedly created a crime syndicate to target critics of Hindutva. In May this year, during the Gauri Lankesh case trial, one of the witnesses who had earlier informed a court that he attended training camps where outside experts also came, turned hostile and denied his earlier statements. The 37-year-old prosecution witness, who is involved in grassroots politics in Karnataka's Belagavi, was declared hostile by the state special public prosecutor after he denied all the statements he had made before a magistrate in September 2018. He denied recruiting and taking three people from Belagavi for a training camp in Maharashtra's Jalna around January 2015, where a Belagavi man, who is an accused in the August 30, 2015, murder of Prof M M Kalburgi in Dharwad, was also allegedly a participant. In 2018, the witness stated the presence of as many as four external trainers at some of the camps who were experts in the use of explosives and subversion tactics. The external trainers were only identified as 'Bade Mahatmaji', 'Chote Mahatmaji' or 'Bade Babaji', and 'Bhai Saab', and their real identities were not revealed, he stated. 'The members of this crime syndicate were continuously provided with various kinds of training in the making and usage of weapons and explosives at many places. Local members of the syndicate took up the responsibility of organising these training camps at the different locations,' the SIT stated in the chargesheet in the Gauri Lankesh murder case. Among those accused in the Gabri Lankesh murder and other murder and terror cases who attended the training camps with 'guest trainers' are allegedly Amit Degwekar, Virendra Tawade, Sharad Kalaskar, Shrikant Pangarkar, Vasudev Suryavanshi, Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi, Bharat Kurne, Sachin Andhure, and Praveen Chatur. The descriptions of the 'babajis' were provided in the course of the Lankesh case probe by three arrested men Shrikant Pangarkar, 40, a former Shiv Sena councillor from Maharashtra, Sharad Kalaskar, 26, the alleged shooter in the 2013 Narendra Dabholkar murder case, and Vasudev Suryavanshi, 29, a mechanic who allegedly stole motorcycles for the murders of four progressive thinkers between 2015 and 2017. Sharad Kalaskar, who attended training camps of the syndicate where 'guest trainers' were in attendance, was convicted last year in the murder of the Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune. He provided details of the training camps he attended to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which investigated the Dabholkar murder case. One of the arrested men in the Bengaluru case has stated that he was told that the 'guest trainers' who were experts in making IEDs were members of the 'Aseemanand group' in a possible reference to former RSS worker Naba Kumar Sarkar alias Aseemanand, who was arrested in the blast cases of the 2006-2008 period and was acquitted in the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, and Ajmer cases. According to the case documents, the camps provided training to dozens of people recruited by a covert unit of the Sanatan Sanstha linked to the murders of the rationalist Dabholkar, leftist thinker Govind Pansare, Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh. 'The members of this organisation targeted persons whom they identified as inimical to their beliefs and ideology. The members strictly followed the guidelines and principles mentioned in 'Kshatra Dharma Sadhana', a book published by Sanatan Sanstha,' the SIT said after it filed a 9,235-page chargesheet on November 23, 2018, in the Gauri Lankesh case. The missing Abhinav Bharat men who have been on the run since 2008 are believed to have been roped in to train Sanatan Sanstha-linked persons to make bombs when the ENT doctor and Sanatan Sanstha activist Virendra Tawade was running the covert group between 2011 and 2016. At some training camps — such as the one held in Belagavi in Karnataka in December 2014 — the training in making IEDs was provided by Amit Degwekar, a resident of the Sanatan Sanstha ashram in Goa, who has been arrested in the Gauri Lankesh case for providing logistical and financial support, the Lankesh case documents have indicated. Degwekar's roommate at the Sanatan Sanstha ashram, Malgonda Patil, was killed in the 2009 Goa blast while he was allegedly trying to plant a bomb to disrupt a Diwali celebration opposed by the Sanatan Sanstha.
