Two suspected members of a sleeper cell linked to the banned terror outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) have been arrested along with a huge cache of arms and ammunition in Assam’s Kokrajhar district on Tuesday night.

Special district general of police Harmeet Singh said on Wednesday that a major attack has been thwarted because of the ongoing arrests and recoveries made by the special task force (STF) under Operation Praghat, which has been launched under the direct supervision of STF chief Partha Sarathi Mahanta.

The two arrested have been identified as Abdul Zaher Sheikh and Sabbir Mirdha. With these arrests, the number of ABT suspects arrested from Assam is at seven.

The duo were staying in a rented accommodation belonging to a person named Osman Ali in Kachipara Bazar, Kokrajhar. They were arrested during a search operation by the STF with the help of Kokrajhar police on Tuesday.

“In the course of subsequent interrogation and search operations, as per Section 23 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), a huge cache of arms and ammunition were recovered from the hideout of one of the arrested accused persons,” a police statement said.

The recovered arms and ammunitions included four handmade rifles resembling AKs, 34 rounds of live ammunitions, 24 rounds of blank cartridges, a pair of live unprimed improvised explosive devices (IED) and one hand-made grenade.

Other recoveries included a circuit of detonators made out of agricultural equipment, 14 electronic switches, three iron cases used for making IEDs with 20 iron pieces and plates (used for causing maximum damage) and huge numbers of switches and wires with explosives used in fire crackers along with other incriminating items, the police claimed.

Under Operation Praghat, the STF, with the help of West Bengal and Kerala police, had arrested eight persons on December 17 and 18, including a Bangladeshi national, for their suspected link with a terror module during simultaneous raids carried out in the three states.