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GUWAHATI: Bhutanese troops on Thursday captured all 30 camps of three anti-Indian militant groups as soldiers continued an offensive to flush militants out of the Himalayan kingdom, a top official said.
“All 30 militant camps belonging to the three separatist groups in southern Bhutan have been overrun by our soldiers and we are now in the process of driving the militants out of the country,” said Singay Dorji, a Bhutanese foreign ministry spokesman.
“We don’t know where the militants are right now. They could be deep inside the jungles, but our troops are in hot pursuit of them,” Dorji told IANS by telephone from Bhutan’s capital Thimphu.
In Kolkata, a top Indian general said the militants were weakening after losing some 120 cadres in the past three days.
Lt Gen J S Verma, chief of the Indian Army’s eastern command, said the bulk of the militants had gone into jungles adjoining their camps. “There is some resistance by militants at places,” he said.
Dorji said the Bhutanese troops were facing “resistance” from militants in the first-ever offensive launched by the Royal Bhutan Army on Monday to evict some 3,000 militants hiding in within the largely Buddhist kingdom.
“We don’t know how long it would take to finish the task of removing the militants from Bhutan,” he said.
Militants belonging to the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) on Thursday claimed they killed up to 100 Bhutanese soldiers since the offensive began