"It was on March 16 that a meeting of insurgent leaders had been held in Bangkok under the auspices of the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence), and therein it was finalised," Director-General of Indian police GM Srivastava was quoted as telling the TDF.

The paper also reported that "The meeting, he (Srivastava) asserted, decided to send two major consignments of arms and ammunition to Northeast militants based in Bangladesh through Chittagong port of Cox's Bazar".

It added that Srivastava also said top leaders of five major outfits including Ranjit Debbarma of the All Tripura Tiger Force and United Liberation of Force of Assam Paresh Barua were represented by Raju Barua at the Bangkok meeting.

The TDF also quoted Srivastava as saying that Bangladesh police are yet to reveal that they have over the past two days arrested 16 activists of the ATTF, Ulfa, National Liberation Front of Tripura, and People's Liberation Army and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup of Manipur.

"Making this public will amount to official admission of the presence of anti-Indian militants on Bangladesh soil."

"Part of the consignment would have gone to fundamentalist elements in Bangladesh," Srivastava was quoted as saying.

TDF also reported that Srivastava told it that a certain group in Bangladesh tipped off the Rapid Action Battalion after they saw the consignment was being offloaded.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi has informed the BBC that he was sure that the 10 truckloads of arms were destined for Ulfa. Gogoi explained that since Ulfa lost a number of arms in southern Bhutan in December they were planning to purchase a huge consignment of arms from Southeast Asia and transport it through Bangladesh.

He added he will request Delhi to set up long-term joint efforts with Bangladesh on matters concerning separatist groups in India.