Border Security Force personnel on Wednesday afternoon caught three female members of Manipur-based rebel groups while they were trying to infiltrate into East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya from Bangladesh. One of them, Lily Leima Devi, 52, is the publicity secretary of the outlawed People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The capture of these rebels, reportedly being hounded out from their Bangladesh hideouts by Dhaka, follows the charge-sheeting of three top members of another Manipuri outfit – United National Liberation Front (UNLF) – by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
NIA has been probing the UNLF’s role in milking Central development funds allotted to Manipur for their subversive activities. West Bengal-based Indranil Chanda, the alleged in-charge of Maoist operations in Assam, was last week arrested in this connection.
"The three women were trying to sneak through an unfenced but shrubby stretch of the international border. They revealed that they had come from their Khonagaon camp in Moulvi Bazaar district (Bangladesh) and were heading towards Manipur," a senior BSF officer in Shillong said on Thursday.
Apart from Lily, 'captain' Memma Devi, 52, is a PLA member while the third, ‘lieutenant’ Ibecha Devi, 34, is a top soldier of the outlawed Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup, the officer said. The three, he added, were handed over to the Meghalaya police.
