Guwahati, Mar 19 (IANS): Weeks ahead of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) polls, the Indian Army and Assam police in a joint raid busted a terror hideout and recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition in western Assam, defence sources said on Wednesday night.

Defence spokesman Lt. Col P. Khongsai said, acting on intelligence inputs, Army troopers and Assam Police personnel conducted extensive search operations in Chirang Reserve Forest under Kokrajhar and Udalguri districts and recovered arms and ammunition on late Tuesday evening.

Assisted by Army tracker dogs, troops from Red Horn Division carried out extensive search operations and recovered the large cache of arms and ammunition from two different locations of the dence reserve forest areas.

The arms and ammunition recovered include, three AK series types factory made rifles, one grenade launcher, eleven country made improvised rifles, 60 live grenades, 419 assorted ammunition and a huge quantities of explosives.

Senior Assam police officials suspected that the arms and ammunition likely to be used before and during the April 4 election to the 40-member BTC.

The politically important BTC comprises four districts of western Assam -- Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang and Udalguri.