Tigers supply arms to naxalites: Coast Guard officers

<div class="section0"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">VISAKHAPATNAM: When the People’s War (PW) and the LTTE decide to have a tryst, it’s the Bay of Bengal which serves as the venue, Coast Guard officers say.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">In fact, Tamil Tigers regularly ply the Maoist guerrillas with guns and munitions.The landings happen on the coastline in Krishna and Guntur districts, they say. Senior Coast Guard officers said they have passed this information to their higher-ups and also to AP’s Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), which tracks the naxalites.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">“The coastline between Machilipatnam and Guntur, where the land is in the shape of a belly, is most conducive for such types of activities because the sea is calm in that area. The coastline here does not have too many habitations. Our intelligence reports have mentioned this activity,� a Coast Guard officer said.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">He said they had intelligence that LTTE operatives are active on the AP coast disguised as fishermen, sometimes in mechanised boats and at times in locally made boats carrying arms concealed in boxes.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">According to Coast Guard intelligence reports, PW couriers received arms and ammunition from the LTTE’s ‘fishing’ boats in the second and last quarters of 2003. The shipments were transported away on the national highway which runs near the coast in the Palnadu area.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Coast Guard DIG D B Prasad was tightlipped when asked to confirm or deny the intelligence reports. He said there is a thoroughfare for Sri Lankan ships and boats which carry goods to Bangladesh and Myanmar through Indian waters.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">A senior police officer agreed that the PW was importing arms from the LTTE and some militant outfits in Bangladesh. He said it is now also tapping sources in Nepal and Thailand.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">The police officer said that till December 2002, SIB received no information from the Coast Guard. However, Coast Guard sources maintained that they passed on their intelligence to the state.</span><br /></div> </div>