In a major strike against the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, the army on Tuesday killed eight of its cadres including two women in an operation in Lohit district of Aurnachal Pradesh.
ULFA has asked an RBI official to pay up.
A top United Liberation Front of Asom leader along with an Indian journalist and a photographer was detained in Myanmar but the two mediapersons were later released.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday renewed appeal to anti-talk ULFA leader Paresh Barua and others to abjure violence and sit across the table to solve their problems through democratic means.
The United Liberation Front of Asom is trying to re-group, after it suffered a setback recently when a faction of the banned extremist outfit broke away to participate in peace talks with the Centre.Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has stated that though the law and order situation in the state is currently under control, the government has information about the anti-talks faction of the banned ULFA, led by commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, trying to regroup.
A major fire broke out at Numaligarh Refinery Limited in Assam's Golaghat district on Saturday, with the United Liberation Front of Assam claiming responsibility for triggering a blast which led to the subsequent fire.
ULFA accuses Centre of being silent after first round of talks
Upping the ante, United Liberation Front of Asom 'commander-in-chief' Paresh Barua shot off a 'last message' to the centre, asking it to take a referendum in Assam if it could not discuss the sovereignty issue with the group.
A caller identifying himself as ULFA commander-in-chief Paresh Barua told a local daily over telephone on Thursday night that the outfit was not behind the blast but "we cannot rule out the involvement of other groups sympathetic to our cause."
The pro-talks faction of United Liberation Front of Assam on Saturday reacted sharply to the lynching of one of its members Bijoy Das at Bidyapara in Goalpara district of Assam on Friday and alleged hands of illegal migrant settlers from Bangladesh in the murder.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday said that like all other insurgent groups in truce with the government, the banned United Liberation Front of Assam too would have to enter into a formal agreement for suspension of operation and surrender weapons before starting dialogue with the government of India.
The Paresh Barua faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom on Saturday denied media reports that he and several cadres were injured during a raid by Myanmarese forces on a camp of the rebels in that country. "Our leaders and cadres are safe and secure. News about our leaders being injured is not only false, but is a misinformation campaign by government agencies to mislead the people of Assam," said an aide.
The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, preparing for unconditional dialogue with the Government of India, has said that its leaders and cadres involved in the current peace process with the government will have 'zero involvement' in the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam.
The pro-talk United Liberation Front of Asom faction, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa, is deliberating on the charter of demands to be taken up during its peace talks with the Centre.
Even as the government of India and the pro-talks faction of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam are to sit for a dialogue to resolve the political problem, hardliners of the outfit, led by fugitive commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, are out to create fresh trouble in the state.
The chairman of the proscribed United Liberation Front of Asom Arabinda Rajkhowa on Tuesday said that the outfit was hopeful that the assurance of an 'honourable negotiated solution' to all the burning problems of Assam as given by 'the leadership of the world's largest democracy to the people of a strife-torn Assam ' would be kept in true spirit.
The pro-talk United Liberation Front of Asom leadership, supported by four of the total six armed battalions of the organisation, has formally announced on Saturday its decision to start a meaningful peace talks with the Central government without any preconditions.
The Supreme Court Friday issued notices to the Centre and Assam government on a public interest litigation seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into "secret killings" of 265 ULFA activists between 1998-2001.
'We had been repeatedly requesting Bhutan government to act as a mediator between us and the Indian government and convince New Delhi to agree to focus its discussions on our main demand for sovereignty,' ULFA chief Paresh Baruah said.
Pranati Deka had entered the country from Bangladesh by crossing the Brahmaputra River in a boat and was travelling to Mankachar in Dhubri district (in Assam) when she was nabbed along with her accomplice.
The ULFA anti-talks faction triggered a blast at Assam Pradesh Congres Committee headquarter on March 14 in which three Congress leaders were injured. But Gogoi on Friday tried to make light of the ULFA threat saying that the threat had been there since a long time.
In a statement e-mailed to the media, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa said the people of Assam should be prepared to carry out more difficult agitational programmes in future if the 'Indian occupational force' continued with its repressive design to annihilate people's effort for a peaceful political solution to the conflict.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the PCG must make its stand clear on the issue of sovereignty. "The government wants to know the views of the PCG whether they are in favour of a sovereign Assam. If it is, what is the point in talking about holding discussions and allowing things to prolong?"
Eight member-delegation of the United Liberation Front of Asom led by chairman Aurobinda Rajkhowa, already in the national capital, will hold talks with the Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Thursday after a introductory meeting with the Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Revealing the stand of the outfit in the aftermath of the arrest of most of its top leaders in the past few months, spokesperson Mithinga Daimary also said that given the (changed) political situation in the region and the world, sticking to the armed struggle could prove suicidal.
Raising anti-ULFA slogans, the protestors went through several busy streets.
The proscribed United Liberation Front of Asom has been triggering blasts in Assam with uniform regularity setting off seven explosive devices, including five in Guwahati this month, killing nine persons and injuring 100 others.
The Army on Monday gunned down two members of the banned United Liberation Front of Assom in an encounter inside the Ranglu Forest area in Arunachal Pradesh. Troops of the 11 Sikh Light Regiment gunned down senior ULFA cadres Nitul Sonowal and Muleswar Sonowal after a fierce gun battle, said sources. In a separate incident, 11 people were injured in a bomb blast at a fair in Dhansirimukh in Udalguri district of north Assam on Monday afternoon.
The anti-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam on Monday led 10 other militant groups based in the Northeast to call for boycott of Republic Day celebrations in the region and a general strike during 1.00 am to 5.30 pm to protest 'India's unrelenting colonial occupation of the region with the sole objective of exploiting its rich natural resources by gagging to people's voice for liberation from its clutches."
"We have plugged all routes, making it difficult for the ULFA to bring in weapons and cadres from their bases in neighbouring countries," said Lt Gen B S Jaswal. ULFA militants were facing a shortage of food and medicines in their jungle camps.
The Guwahati central jail, where several top leaders of the proscribed outfit United Liberation Front of Asom are currently lodged, has become a venue for its leaders to restart the peace process, albeit with the tacit approval of the government, say their lawyer.According to Bijon Mahajan, lawyer of interned ULFA 'foreign secretary' Sasha Choudhury and 'finance secretary' Chitroban Hazarika, the investigating agency could have asked for further police custody.
The recovery was made after the arrest of Champak Sharma, an ULFA cadre. Immediately after the arrest, the police recovered five kilograms of RDX explosives, a large number of splinters, bomb sealing materials and ammunition of SLR from a rented house near the Army transit camp.
A security source said it was part of ULFA's strategy to mount pressure on the Army, which has put ULFA strongholds in Tinsukia district and areas adjoining the Arunachal Pradesh border under strict surveillance.
Defending his claim that Musharraf had met Chetia, Local Government Minister and ruling Awami League's general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam said, "We've the evidence. We've not made any statement without evidence. I am aware that no comment should be made about a president without any evidence."
They set afire a 5000KL petrol tank, blasted a gas pipeline, attacked a police post and a commando barrack and fired at a Bihari settlement, killing two persons.
The Army shot dead two militants of the United Liberation Front of Assom in an anti-insurgency operation in North Assam on Sunday. A satellite phone as well as arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants.
However, the police and paramilitary force personnel are being deployed heavily in Bihu cultural function venues all over the state to prevent any untoward incidents that may be engineered by the ULFA out of frustration.
Assam government on Monday announced that the wives and children of arrested United Liberation Front of Asom leaders chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, deputy commander-in-chief Raju Baruah, foreign secretary Sasadhar Choudhury were under police security and would be released soon as there was no case registered against the spouses; although they were members of the women wing of the outfit.
ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and others have been produced before the Kamrup Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Guwahati amid heavy security.
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