India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

Assam : ULFA suffers heavy casualties in military crackdown

	April 16, 2007

The Army has claimed that it has killed 48 ULFA militants since a massive military attack began in Assam in September last year, and has also choked their supplies and communication network.



“The ULFA has suffered heavy casualties in the ongoing operations losing 48 rebels in separate encounters since September, with as many as 14 of them gunned down in the past two weeks alone,” said Army spokesman Lt Col Narender Singh on April 14.



The military operations began on Sept. 24 after New Delhi called off a six-week ceasefire with the ULFA blaming the group for stepping up violence and extortions. In continuing raids by soldiers of a mountain division based in eastern Assam since the offensive began, 64 ULFA rebels were detained and 32 more surrendered before the authorities.



The ULFA, which is fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979, is blamed for a string of bombings and attacks in January, killing about 80 people, 61 of them being Hindi-speaking migrant workers.



The Army claims its stepped-up offensive and vigil have choked the supply routes of the ULFA with the rebels under pressure.







“The supply lines of the ULFA for carrying rations, medicines and weapons have been literally blocked with continuous patrol and pressure mounted on the outfit,” the army commander said. The Army also claimed to have cracked the ULFA’s communication signals by using sophisticated jamming devices.



“The ULFA is on the run and their backbone is almost broken with continuous pressure from our troops. We have broken their communication signals with the ULFA in total disarray now,” Singh said.



Intelligence reports earlier said the ULFA had shifted its base from Assam to the jungles in adjoining Arunachal Pradesh, while many have sneaked into camps located in neighbouring Myanmar after the army offensive.



“Even the Myanmarese junta have stepped up the heat against the ULFA by launching a crackdown in selected areas,” an intelligence official said requesting anonymity.





Wives of missing ULFA leaders continue hunger strike



Wives of six missing ULFA leaders are continuing their hunger strike in Assam. Their hunger strike is intended to put pressure on the Government to produce their husbands who are reported missing since Dec. 2003 during the Operation Flush out in Bhutan. They are also demanding resumption of the peace process with ULFA.



The women were arrested in the wee hours of March 30 and shifted to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) a day later. According to reports, the condition of the fasting women was deteriorating rapidly. Authorities had to procure intra-parenteral fluid from Calcutta to keep the women alive.



Doctors at GMCH have refused to abide by a government directive to forcibly feed the fasting wives of ULFA militants, lest it lead to health complications rather than do them any good.



“Force-feeding is possible only when a patient shows a certain degree of willingness to take food. We cannot do it with these women because they are determined not to consume solid food. They have reacted aggressively whenever we have tried to advise them to end their fast. Use of force could lead to serious medical complications,” said Dr M.M. Deka, principal and chief superintendent of the hospital.





PM’s visit to Assam



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid a day’s visit to Assam on April 8 amidst incidents of insurgency by militants. On his arrival in Guwahati, the Prime Minister attended a function organised to lay the foundation stone of a second bridge over the river Brahmaputra.



The bridge will be a part of the East-West corridor project. Scheduled to be completed by April 2010, the 1,494-metre-long bridge will be built by the National Highways Authority of India with a budget of Rs 238.44 crore.



According to reports, there was utter chaos at the function as a near-stampede occurred at the entrance of the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Amingaon which had a seating capacity of 2,500.



When mediapersons stranded outside the gate requested the IGP and senior superintendent of police S.N. Singh to make way for them to enter the venue, the latter allegedly misbehaved with them. The reporters were asked to go “wherever they like”, which infuriated them and led to a “media boycott”.



A bomb blast that killed one person and injured 11 others, sent shivers down the spine of the security establishment. The blast occurred when the Prime Minister was addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone of the bridge.



Dispur sounded an alert in Upper Assam immediately after the explosion in Guwahati in view of the Prime Minister’s scheduled visit to Dibrugarh the next day to lay the foundation stone of the gas cracker project at Lepetkata.



Monu Begum, a witness to the explosion, said she saw two youth on a motorcycle slowing down at a speed-breaker before hitting an auto. “They fell down but got up quickly and scampered away. The bomb exploded immediately after,” she recalled.



The explosion was so powerful that the motorcycle was hurled several feet above the ground. Windowpanes of several houses in the vicinity were shattered.



Inspector-General of Police (Law and Order) D.K. Pathak said the two youth were probably carrying the bomb to a specific location when they met with an accident, which triggered the explosion.