Agartala, February 12 (TIWN): llegal arms keep mounting in the state as arms recovered by the state police and other security personnel increases day by day. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said in response to a question moved by opposition MLA Ratan Lal Nath and Jitendra sarkar in the assembly. While a large number of these arms and ammunition were recovered while returnees surrendered arms to the security forces, a good number of the arms were recovered during raids and search operations in the border adjacent villages of the state as well. According to the report, they make bulk purchases of arms and ammunition in the flourishing black markets of Bangkok and other Southeast Asian cities and smuggle them into Bangladesh through Chittagong port. The consignment is then sold to militants, fundamentalists and criminal elements in Bangladesh and the neighbouring Indian states,' a source said. During the past two years, the Bangaldesh army and paramilitary forces seized large quantities of arms and ammunition but still there has been no thaw in the arms smuggling. Shikolbaha, Chakbazar and Bandarpur areas around Chittagong are the hubs of arms stock and illegal sale. Sources added that even Bangladesh was waking up to the threat posed to internal and international security by the illegal arms trade.

 The latest report for the three consecutive years were depicted as :

The police is successful to arrest only 67 persons connected with the export and import of illegal arms.

However, the presence illegal migrants from Bangladesh, which runs into millions, is in fact an “aggression” on the State of Tripura and has also contributed significantly in causing serious “internal disturbances” in the shape of insurgency of alarming proportion making the life of the people wholly insecure and the panic generated thereby has created a fear psychosis…. The impact is such that it not only affects the State of Assam but it also affects its sister States like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, etc.