The Telegraph

Gangtok, Feb. 9: The chief of the United Gorkha Revolutionary Front, Ajay Dahal, was arrested in Sikkim today with a firearm and ammunition.

A former jawan of the Central Industrial Security Force, Dahal has been underground ever since the murder of GNLF panchayat member Yonsingh Lepcha at Lower Santuk, 20km from Kalimpong, on October 24, 2006.

The UGRF, a militant outfit, was formed in 2006 when Dahal had announced that he was raising an “army” to fight for Gorkhaland.

Dahal’s arrest comes more than three years after Kalimpong police caught the rebel outfit’s second-most important member Suk Bahadur Subba on November 29, 2006 in an ambush in the forests of the Lava-Algarah belt. Subba was considered to be an even more important catch than netting Dahal at that time as the former used to recruit for the United Gorkha Revolutionary Army, the UGRF’s armed wing, and collect firearms and funds for the outfit, police said.

While senior Sikkim police officers did not want to comment on the arrest saying that a news conference would be held tomorrow, reliable sources in the police said Dahal was picked up around 1.30pm from the taxi stand in Gangtok. Following intelligence inputs that the rebel was in the Sikkim capital, plainclothes men had been on the lookout.

A country-made gun and three live .38 cartridges were seized from the handbag he was carrying, the sources said. Dahal has been interrogated at the Sadar police station. A team of policemen from Kalimpong has also arrived here.

A senior police officer in Darjeeling also confirmed Dahal’s arrest. Warrants had been out against him for Lepcha’s murder and for holding armed training camps in the Pedong area of Kalimpong, he said.

Intelligence sources said Dahal had left the GNLF soon after the murder of former DGHC councillor C.K. Pradhan in Kalimpong on October 3, 2002. He joined the GNLF(C) but left it in 2006 to form the UGRF. Dahal was also the Kalimpong president of the All Gorkha Students’ Union.

Of late, the UGRF chief has been threatening Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung and his frontal leaders through pamphlets. Former GNLF councillors also received threats from him.

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