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North East: Assam insurgency : 64 ULFA cadres lay down arms

	November 05, 2007

In the biggest ever setback to the secessionist elements in the troubled north-east, 64 ULFA militants in Assam vowed to abdicate the path of violence and surrendered before the security forces on Nov. 1 to join the national mainstream. The line-up of militants at the surrender ceremony, organised at the 4th Assam Police Battalion headquarters in Kahilipara, included four “sergeants-major” and five “sergeants” from ULFA’s 28, 109 and 709 battalions. The prize catch was Ujjal Gohain, the finance secretary of the 28 Battalion.



The militants who turned up at the police battalion head¬quarters deposited eight AK-56 rifles, five pistols, 10 revolv¬ers, 11 grenades, eight AK-56 magazines, assorted ammunition, detonators, 5kg of RDX, RPG shells, gelatin sticks and switches of programmable timer devices that are fitted to bombs.



The surrender ceremony was the third in less than a month. As many as 42 ULFA militants turned themselves over at the Army base in Tamulpur under Baksa district on October 23. Another 13 militants surrendered at Laipuli in Tinsukia district the previ¬ous week.





Gogoi cautious



The trickle of “disillusioned” militants coming out of hiding to lay down arms at periodic intervals has turned into a pate, but Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi sees in this a reason to be vigilant rather than happily complacent.



“Watch out for retaliatory strikes by ULFA and its jihadi collaborators,” the Chief Minister said after the militants laid down their weapons.



Gogoi said the developments of the last fortnight were as much an indication of law and order improving as the eagerness of the ULFA rank and file to abjure violence. He cited statistics - 665 ULFA militants have surrendered since the collapse of the peace process in September last year - as proof of the gover¬nment’s strategy against the militant group succeeding.



Only 44 militants surrendered between August 2005 and Sep¬tember 2006, when the peace process was on, the Chief Minister said. “But we cannot afford to be complacent. There is a report that it (ULFA) is trying to strike. Jihadi groups have also joined hands with ULFA. There is a clear nexus between the two,” he added.



Militants who surrender will be trained in various skills and be paid a stipend of Rs 2,000 per month for three years, apart from Rs 1.5 lakh as insurance.



Self-styled “Sergeant-major” Bhaskar Bora, alias Rantu Gogoi, from Tinsukia district said ULFA had discarded “democrat¬ic” values. “It has turned into an autocratic outfit with the leadership having no time to listen to the lower-ranked cadre,” he said during the ceremony.



Baby Chetri, alias Manisha Sarma, said she gained nothing by joining ULFA in 1999. “My father died when I was in jail. There is no news of my mother and brother. My neighbours refuse to provide me shelter,” the girl from Darjeeling said. Daughter of a railway employee posted in Maligaon, Baby was arrested in Bhutan. She came out of jail only a few days ago, only to discover that her mother and brother had deserted her.



Director-General of Police R.N. Mathur, the chief of the 4 Corps, Lt Gen. B.S. Jaswal, and Principal Secretary (Home and Political) S.C. Das were in the official contingent at the sur¬render ceremony.



According to a senior police officer, at least 35 more militants have sent feelers to the security establishment about their willingness to surrender.





Cloud looms over NC Hills polls



Elections to the North Cachar Hills Autonomous District Council have come under a cloud once again with the DHD mili¬tants’ terror tactics striking fear among the candidates of the ruling Congress.



“There is doubt about the number of voters willing to exer¬cise their franchise. It will be totally unwise to go ahead with the elections under the shadow of the gun,” a Congress candidate said.



The polls, earlier slated for June 13 this year, were post¬poned on June 5 after the Gorlosa faction of the DHD killed the chief executive member of the council, Purnendu Langthasa and his colleague Nindu Langthasa on June 4.



“Militants might target more candidates if Dispur decides to go ahead with the elections,” a source said.



“Our candidates will now think twice before campaigning. Who wants to risk his life?” another Congress candidate said.





Seven CRPF men die in ambush



A retired jawan leaving for home and six colleagues were gunned down on Nov. 2 in one of the more audacious militant attacks in Assam in recent months.



Police suspect the anti-talks faction of the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD), a group representing the Dimasa tribe of North Cachar Hills district, of being behind the ambush on a desolate stretch of a hilly road about 200km from Guwahati and 70km from Haflong.



The slain personnel were escorting the commanding officer of the CRPF’s 50th Battalion, P.K. Chetry, from Haflong to Lanka in Nagaon district when the rebels struck between Dehangi and Doyangmukh.



For sub-inspector P.K. Awasthi, who retired from service on Wednesday, it was meant to be a journey back home to a life bereft of the tensions of serving in a militant-infested area. He had hitched a ride to Lanka on the third and last vehicle in the convoy, which is the one the militants chose to attack. The retired jawan was to have proceeded to Guwahati from Lanka on his own and then catch a train to his native village of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.



The officer in-charge of Umrangshu police station, Anil Moran, said from the ambush site that the militants probably had information that a convoy would pass that way and were lying in wait on both sides of the road. “They let the first two vehicles pass and targeted the pick-up van (in which the guards were travelling) with grenades and a hail of bullets from automatic weapons. The jawans had no time to retaliate. All of them died where they fell.”



The two vehicles in front sped away to Doyangmukh, from where the survivors called the police for help.



The others who died in the attack were A.D. Varma, Nav-in Chand, Sahadev Chandra Rai, D.N. Tiwari, Anil Kumar Rai and Prasanta Bora. Varma was a havildar from Tripura, Chand a sub-inspector from Uttaranchal, Sahadev Rai a constable from Kokraj¬har, Tiwari a havildar from Uttar Pradesh, Anil Rai a driver from the same state and Bora a constable from Nagaon.



The additional superintendent of police (security) of North Cachar Hills, Nitai Chandra Ghosh, said the ambush had the stamp of the Jewel Gorlosa-led faction of the DHD. “Prima facie, the needle of suspicion points to this anti-talks faction of the Dimasa militant group.”



The police suspect the attack was in retaliation for the arrest of 10 DHD(J) members between October 15 and 17 in North Cachar Hills and neighbouring Meghalaya. The other faction of the DHD is in ceasefire with Delhi and the state government.









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ULFA welcomes cricket teams



Reports from Guwahati say, the ULFA has welcomed the crick¬et teams of India and Pakistan to Assam. In a statement released to the media through e-mail on Nov. 3, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa said that the teams arriving in Guwahati to play the one-day international match have talented players of internation¬al repute and it would give an opportunity to the people of Assam to watch their game.



The ULFA asserted that there would not be any threat from the ULFA to the match and appealed to all concerned to ensure an incident free game. The ULFA also pointed out that a majority of the players and common people of Assam were not in a position to go to other places to watch international matches.





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Home Ministry proposes 600 new border outposts



Buoyed by the Centre’s approval for flood-lighting the entire 4,095-km Indo-Bangladesh border, the Union Home Ministry will now push for having 600 more Border Out Posts (BOPs) for better vigilance along international boundaries with all coun¬tries.



“The Home Ministry will now try to reduce the gap between two BOPs from five km now to 3.5 km. For this, 600 more BOPs are needed in addition to over 2,000 at present,” said Assam Tribune on Nov. 3 quoting a senior MHA official.



He said though it might not be feasible to have BOPs every 3.5 km because of difficult terrain, efforts will be made to ensure closer BOPs. “At important places, these may even be at a distance of less than 3.5 km,” he said.



The MHA’s efforts for having more BOPs comes close on the heels of the Government deciding to have the entire Indo-Bangla border floodlit within five years at a cost of Rs 1,300 crore.



“The Government has approved a proposal to install flood¬lights along the fenced portion of the Indo-Bangla border to help the BSF have a strict vigil on movements at night,” he said.



India’s border with Bangladesh touches West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura and the porous boundary is used for infiltration of militants and criminals as also for cattle smuggling.



As part of a pilot project, a stretch of 277-km has been floodlit in West Bengal where advanced gadgets like night vision binoculars and thermal hand-held imagers have been provided to the security personnel.



This has curbed movement of unwanted elements along the Indo-Bangla border, MHA sources said.



Fencing along the Indo-Bangla border is to be completed in three phases - while the first phase covering 857 km is complete, work is on in the second phase covering 2,429 km.



The task got embroiled in a dispute with Bangladesh which insisted that the fence had to come up at a distance of 150 metres from the international boundary as per the 1974 agreement between the two countries.



India, however, does not accept this, though differences between the two sides have been narrowed down during recent talks at the Home Secretary and BSF-BDR levels, raising optimism in the North Block that entire task would be completed soon.