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Assam steps up drive to expose ULFA's ISI links

Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati

Bolstered by largescale desertion of middle and lower level cadres of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom, the Assam government has embarked on an aggressive strategy to expose the outfit's links with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and further discredit its leadership.

The two-pronged strategy was unveiled last Tuesday when 436 cadres of the ULFA gave up arms at the very spot at which the outfit was formed on April 7, 1979.

On Thursday, Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta made a hard-hitting statement in the state assembly furnishing what he claimed was ''an irrefutable proof of the ULFA's links with the ISI''.

The offensive by the government came on the eve of the outfit's 22nd Foundation Day which was celebrated in its camps in the jungles of southern Bhutan adjoining lower Assam districts.

Reports in the local media have said that the top leadership of the armed outfit is meeting there to take stock of the situation and the developments in the past three months. Over 500 cadres have left the outfit and at least 50 others have been killed in a stepped up offensive by the security forces during this period.

On Thursday, Mahanta made a detailed statement in the assembly presenting what he called "conclusive evidence," of the ULFA's involvement with the ISI.

"The Pakistani ISI has procured several passports for the self-styled commander-in-chief of the ULFA, Paresh Baruah," Mahanta said and furnished photocopies of a Bangladeshi passport issued in the name of Kamaruddin Zaman Khan. "Documentary evidence suggests that this Bangladeshi passport was procured by fraudulent means with the help of an official at Pakistani high commission in Dhaka," the chief minister said.

Several ULFA cadres have been imparted arms training by the ISI at various training centres in Pakistan close to the Afghanistan border.

Mahanta also dwelt at length on what he called a long-term plan by the ISI to foment trouble in Assam and the north-east.

"The ISI's activities can be categorised into six different areas. They are: (a) promoting indiscriminate violence in Assam by providing active support to the local militant outfit; (b) creating new militant outfits on ethnic and communal lines; (c) supplying explosives and sophisticated arms to various terrorist groups; (d) causing sabotage to oil pipelines and other installations, (e) promoting fundamentalism and militancy among local Muslim youths by misleading them in the name of jehad and (f) instigating communal tension between the Hindus and Muslims," the chief minister said.

Mahanta's statement comes close on the heels of hard-hitting criticism by a self-styled second lieutenant of the outfit, Amrit Phukan who led the biggest ever surrender of the ULFA cadres at Rangghar, an ancient ampi-theatre in upper Assam Sibsagar district on Tuesday.

The ULFA was formed at this very place exactly 21 years ago. Phukan, a qualified trainer within the outfit for eight years before he chose to come overground, criticised the ULFA C-in-C Paresh Baruah for running the organisation as his own fiefdom.

"Internal democracy is non-existent in ULFA. There is no ideology left," Phukan said in a prepared statement.

Later talking to media persons, Phukan and a woman cadre Sewali Neog said they have come overground and given up arms since they realised that violence is not the solution to any problem.

At the same time, the duo urged the state government to address the two basic causes -- unemployment and poverty -- of militancy on a war-footing. "Unless people are assured of a decent livelihood, ULFA will continue getting new recruits," Phukan said.

He should know. Despite over 4,000 cadres having officially surrendered to the state government since April 1992, the ULFA continues to have about 2,000 cadres in its camps in Bhutan. Clearly, fresh recruitment continues unabated. Most of the fresh entrants, according to Phukan, join the outfit due to economic compulsions. That's is the area where the state government will have to look into seriously.

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