4 AR jawans grilled in Mizoram robbery case

Aizawl: Four persons were arrested on Thursday and as many Assam Rifles personnel questioned by a special investigation team (SIT) of Mizoram Police, investigating an alleged gold robbery on the Aizawl-Lunglei Highway in December last.
Among those arrested were a well-known non-tribal government supplier and a former student leader. They were remanded in police custody for interrogation by a local court.The jawans of the 39th battalion of Assam Rifles were questioned at the Aizawl Police Station.
According to an FIR submitted by C Lalnunfela of Aizawl, armed Assam Rifles jawans stopped his vehicle on the outskirts of Aizawl on the Aizawl-Lunglei Highway on December 14, 2015. Lalnunfela said the jawans, armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols, and some civilians stopped his vehicle at gunpoint and took away gold bars worth Rs 14.5 crore being smuggled from Myanmar. He said he filed the complaint almost four months after the incident as the jawans had threatened to kill him if he went to police.
Cases of dacoity, sharing property stolen in the commission of dacoity, criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation were registered by the police on Thursday. The six-member SIT, headed by the additional SP of the CID (Crime) unit, did not rule out the involvement of senior Assam Rifles officers in the crime.
Police said the dacoity might have been the outcome of back-stabbing by smugglers as some of the accused were earlier involved in gold smuggling. The gold bars were reportedly taken to Guwahati, from where they were sold in different parts of the country.