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The guns of Assam fall silent...

The guns of Assam have given way to intense psychological warfare. Between the Union home ministry, army, State and the United Liberation Front of Asom.

It began with a 36-page report, 'Bleeding Assam,' circulated by the home ministry. The report, leaked to the Guwahati press, charges the ULFA with running flourishing trades such as schools and poultry farms in Bangladesh.

While Bangladesh denied most of the charges, ULFA leader Auribindo Rajkhowa said 'Bleeding Assam' was prompted by the banned outfit's ''constant success'', and that it ''vindicated'' their stand.

The report claimed the ULFA had contacts with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence -- a charge that the outfit denied as ''imaginary and baseless.''

The extremist outfit, the report continued, owned three hotels, a medical centre and two motor driving schools in Dhaka and ran some big shops selling medicines in Sylhet. In Mymenshing, the guerrillas were reported to have poultry farms while in Narshindhi they were running two schools.

The report said ULFA general secretary Golap Barua alias Anup Chetia looked after the businesses till he was arrested last year. Now that a Bangladesh court has sentenced him to six years in prison, finance secretary Chitraban Hazarika has taken over the operations.

Rajkhowa said that after ''failing to force'' the organisation to come to the negotiation table, a propaganda war has been unleashed to make it surrender.

The Assam police, meanwhile, accused the insurgents of trying to kill intellectuals. Accordingly, the ULFA planned to assassinate Dhiren Bezboruah, former Editors Guild of India president - an allegation which, again, the ULFA promptly denied.

Assam Chief Minster Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, for his part, said the plot to assassinate Bezboruah only signified the ULFA's desperation. He said the outfit had plans to eliminate more journalists who opposed it.

Reacting to ULFA's charge that the army was hobnobbing with the Bodoland Liberation Tigers, Lieutenant General N C Vij, general officer commanding-in-chief, Four Corps, said, ''The allegations are false, malicious and in bad taste. There is no question of any link with the BLT.''

UNI

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