In a major blow to ULFA, one of its senior leaders and a key arms-smuggler, Madan Koch, was gunned down by a joint team of Army and police in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district on Sunday. The slain militant is believed to have been ferrying arms regularly from Bangladesh through the Garo Hills corridor, at Kathalbari, said Superintendent of Police, West Garo Hills, JFK Marak.

Koch, a self-styled Sergeant Major, was the operational head of ULFA’s 109 battalion, he said. Arms and ammunitions including a 9 mm pistol, two magazines, a hand grenade and a few kilograms of RDX have been seized from him, he said.

Koch had monitored the delivery of a large quantity of arms to Assam during the past one month for use on and before January 26, sources said. Earlier, ULFA and four other rebel groups had called for a boycott of Republic Day celebrations.