Shillong, Feb 12 (IANS): A rebel was arrested Monday in poll-bound Meghalaya when he tried to lob a crude bomb in a market, police said.

Tenbirth T. Sangma, the rebel of the outlawed Garo outfit, was and a bomb weighing around 300 gram and incriminating documents seized from his possession, police said.

"We have averted a major disaster after we prevented a Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) rebel from throwing a powerful crude bomb in Rongkhon market," Mukesh Kumar Singh, the district police chief of West Garo Hills, told IANS.

Preparations are on for the Feb 23 assembly elections in Meghalaya.

Many polling stations in the five districts of Garo in the western part of Meghalaya has been classified as "hyper-sensitive". Ten companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed in East Garo Hills district to ensure smooth conduct of the elections, a police official said.

The GNLA, fighting for a separate Garoland in the western region of Meghalaya, has forged close operational links with other northeast-based insurgent groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).

Meghalaya, especially the Garo Hills region, is said to be a safe haven for various northeast-based militant groups, including the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), the United Liberation Front of Asom, and a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland.