BHOPAL: Unidentified miscreants infiltrated an army training institute in

(

) of

impersonating as officers and made away with two Insas rifles and 20 live cartridges from two on-duty guards.

Incident took place between 1am and 3am and matter was informed to police by the military officials around 4 am on Friday.

has been sounded across all vital locations including army installations, railway stations and airports after this incident. Intelligence officials from the state, Centre and military reached Pachmari immediately after the incident was reported.

Massive search operation has been launched, ASP Ghanshyam Malviya told TOI.

Two people rented a car from Pipariya railway station and took away rifles from two on duty guards at the Cariappa post - the Cariappa Music Wing at Army Education Corp (AEC) Pachmarhi. Suspects were in tracksuits.

“Suspects who apparently had information on security deployments in the army approached them asking about locations of other guards. With Punjabi accent they asked one of them to look for other guards and call for an assembly. After a few minutes, he asked the other sentry to go and call his JCO. Unsuspecting sentry’s followed the orders leaving behind Insas rifles,” said the police officer.

By the time they returned to their post, duo ‘officers’ had disappeared with their rifles and cartridges, he said.

After initial investigations, police found that suspects had hired a taxi from Pipariya station for Pachmari at around 12.05am. Taxi dropped them back to Pipariya at 4am. Taxi driver has been detained and is being questioned. No CCTV cameras were found at Pipariya station.

“Taxi driver has been rounded up and is being questioned for details. He was drunk when they hired him. Suspects had no bags with them when they had hired the car, but when they returned they had one in their hand. It seems they came here with a well-planned strategy and this incident cannot be taken lightly,” said an officer wishing not to be quoted.

Pachmarhi has a well-maintained cantonment to which was added the Military Band School in 1950 at the instance of Gen K M Cariappa, the first Field Marshall of India. This institute has played an important role in imparting training to military officials from Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan,

,

, Ghana and

among other countries.