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Operation against Ulfa continues

	April 30, 2007

Meanwhile, Indian security forces are continuing their relentless drive to end subversive activities of secessionists who are dancing to the tune of their foreign hand.



In a major breakthrough last week, the police arrested ULFA’s organising secretary Ananta Gogoi, along with two others in the city. Gogoi was inchrage of ULFA’s crack unit - the 28 Battalion. A huge cache of arms and ammunition was also seized from them.



Police sources said the rebel leader was arrested while he was transporting the consignment from Dhopdhara in Goalpara to Tinsukia via Guwahati. The arms are suspected to have been smuggled into the state from Bangladesh through the Garo hills in a Maruti van (AS01H 3508), which was intercepted at Jalukbari. The other two persons arrested were identified as veteran Ulfa activist Deep Gogoi alias Rakhi Phukan and vehicle driver Moni Gowala. The police described Gogoi’s arrest as a major success.



The 37-year-old Gogoi, alias Sasanka Baruah, is from Doomdooma and is a second lieutenant in Ulfa. Hailing from Golaghat, 30-year-old Rakhi is said to be Gogoi’s companion.



The seized arms and other items include two M-20 pistols, four magazines, eight Austrian-made hand grenades, 4.12 kg of RDX, 190 rounds of ammunition of AK-47 rifles, two programmable time device switches, a remote-controlled explosive device, Rs 11,000 in cash, seven ransom and extortion notes and four mobile handsets.



Sources said the special branch of the Assam police interrogated the trio. The police claimed that Gogoi has already made startling disclosures, having named a few Ulfa sympathisers who had given them shelter. He also said Ulfa was extending financial assistance to its overground contact persons.



On basis of Gogoi’s confession, his wife, self-styled Lt Renuka Gogoi alias Punya Prabha Gogoi and their 19-year-old daughter were later arrested from a rented house in Tezpur. A laptop and Rs 30,000 in cash were seized from them. Their other daughter, a schoolgirl, is absconding.



In another operation, police gunned down three miliants at Adimgiri Hill in Maligaon in the wee hours on April 24. The special operations team was conducting a search operation in the area after receiving information about “suspicion-arousing” activities in the area.



“The three Ulfa rebels were hiding in a thatched house on the hillock. They fired at the police team, which retaliated instantly and killed all three,” a police officer said.



The slain rebels were Uddhab Kalita alias Sanjiv Deka, Ganesh Kalita alias Gautam Sharma and Parameswar Deka alias Mrigen Dutta. Uddhab hailed from Naokata village at Goreswar in Baksa district. All three were part of Ulfa’s 709 Battalion, which operates in the city and parts of Lower Assam.



An M-20 pistol, a grenade, half-a-kg of explosives, two bombs and five rounds of ammunition were found at the encounter site. Apart from weapons, explosives and ammunition, the special operations team found containers that are generally used to stack bombs. “We suspect the militants were preparing for more blasts in the city,” the officer said.



Intensive operations by the army in Upper Assam are believed to be forcing Ulfa militants from those areas to shift to Lower Assam. Earlier this month, the army gunned down eight Ulfa members, two of them women, in Arunachal Pradesh on April 10. The operation was said to be the most successful “single strike” in a decade of counter-insurgency operations against the banned militant group.



Reacting to the latest security forces’ drive against ULFA, its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa dismissed the army’s claim that the outfit was a spent force. He accused the armed forces of collaborating with the bureaucracy to sabotage efforts to resume the peace process.



Some of its key members nabbed have confessed significant as well as disturbing information about the outfit’s activities. During the pre and post assembly elections, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had been soft enough to even recommend to the Centre not only release of the jailed leaders but also safe passage to self-styled commander-in-chief Paresh Barua and his team living in Bangladesh. They are remote-controlling terrorism in Assam and other parts of India also for Pakistan’s ISI.



Ulfa hit-man Pallav Saikia, captured by the security forces in January turned out to be a major catch. He was involved in an attempt to kill former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, during a rally at Dhaka, on 21 August 2004, in which 22 people were killed and many injured. The first briefing for this operation to Saikia and 11 of his associates was given by Paresh Barua at a house in Dhaka’s posh Gulshan area. Subsequent briefings and vehicles for this operation were provided by Bangladesh Intelligence operatives.





ULFA militants’ wives end fast



Wives of six missing ULFA militants who had been on a hunger strike for over a month, called off their strike on April 26 after receiving a letter of assurance from Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi that his Government would look into their demand.



The Chief Minister in his letter to the fasting women, delivered by Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, has said that the government had already submitted to Gauhati High Court all information available with it about the missing Ulfa members. He promised to abide by the court’s verdict in the case, “continue” the search for information about the missing men and do everything possible to secure the future of their children.



The People’s Committee for Peace Initiatives in Assam (PCPIA), which had lined up a series of demonstrations in support of the Ulfa members’ wives, was guarded in its reaction. “We have to know exactly what the government has promised the women,” Lachit Bordoloi, one of the leaders of the group, said.



Observers describe this development as “a long-awaited moment of relief” for the government and a setback of sorts to Ulfa’s attempts to whip up public sentiments through these women. The banned outfit, according to observers, could come under more strain now with families of victims of violence in Assam deciding to hit the streets. At least 184 families, including parents of children killed in the Independence Day bomb blast in Dhemaji in 2004, will participate in the demonstration.





Abducted officer’s driver freed



The militant group behind the abduction of the executive director of Food Corporation of India’s Northeast office, P.C. Ram, on April 22 freed his driver somewhere in Lower Assam.



Rabiram Basumatary, who went missing along with Ram while driving back home from their Guwahati office on April 17. Additional superintendent of police (city) Rajen Singh confirmed to that he was freed and was now in police custody. Singh declined to divulge more, including the name of the police station where Basumatary went.



A source said the driver was freed in Baksa district. A team of police officials from Guwahati, including Singh and superintendent of police (special operations unit) Jitmol Doley, left for Baksa immediately to bring the driver back to the city. The fate of kidnapped executive Ram is unknown. The police have found evidence of Ulfa’s hand in the abduction. They have also intercepted telephone calls indicating that Ram is in Baksa district.







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Complete solution of heart diseases !



Eminent cardiac surgeon Dhani Ram Baruah has claimed to have invented organic molecules that “completely cure” heart diseases through genetic engineering.



“After 10 years of research, I have developed the new wonder organic molecules from edible medicinal plants,” Baruah told a press conference in Guwahati on April 28.



Baruah, who qualified from the UK and worked there for more than 20 years, was the first to design the bileaflet mechanical heart valve with zirconium.



Baruah was in the news for claiming to have successfully transplanted a pig’s heart into a dying man in 1997, which generated a controversy among the medical community.



The surgeon said his invention was useful for coronary artery disease. He explained that this condition occurred because of biochemical derangement in the human body and has to be corrected by reversing the derangement.



But this should not be done by mechanical means such as bypass surgery, angioplasty and stenting, he argued.



“We have found the genes responsible for this disease and analysed the changes before and after being engineered by organic molecules, named Baruah Alpha DH2 and Baruah Beta DH2. With that, we have cured patients,” he said.



Lalit Chandra Baruah, one of the patients cured by Dr Baruah, said his heart was blocked and doctors had recommended a pacemaker. “But Dr Baruah cured me without implanting a pacemaker.”



Baruah said by injecting the organic molecules, he can also “cure diseases such as blood cancer, hepatitis B, polycystic kidneys, motor neuron disease, diabetes, congenital heart disease, vascular diseases, chronic lymphatic leukemia and hypertension”.



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