The West Singhbhum police have recovered huge arms and ammunition from Saranda forest after an encounter with ultras of Peoples’ Liberation Front of India (PLFI) on Sunday morning. The police seized one DDBL gun, 180 bullets of AK47, one magazine, bullets of 12 bore, a laptop, 12 cell phones, 46 pieces of clothes, uniform, blanket and other daily use goods.

Acting on a tip off about PLFI activists’ gathering at Temna hill under Gudri police station, district police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) 94 battalion marched there on Saturday night, police said.

Kranti Kumar, superintendent of police, said, “Manoharpur police and CRPF personnel found that PLFI wings of Santosh Kandulna and Boyda had gathered with arms and ammunition. On Sunday early morning, Maoists were asked to surrender, but they started firing on police. After heavy exchange of fire for about one hour, PLFI activists escaped from the site leaving weapons behind”.

“Search operation is going on to trace PLFI activists. There was no casualty from our side. We are trying to find out if Maoists were injured in the encounter,”he added.

“Recovery, reveals that the activists had been planning for a big massive violence in Saranda. Villagers and police personnel could be saved from big attack due to timely information and rampant action by the security forces”, the SP said.

The police are hopeful that crucial information might have been stored in the seized laptop. Further search operation would be conducted in the area on the basis of information, taken from the lap top, police sources said

First Published: Nov 12, 2018 15:12 IST