ULFA now a broken force, says Governor

Assam Governor Lt Gen (Retd) Ajai Singh considers the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam a “disintegrated force...

Assam Governor Lt Gen (Retd) Ajai Singh considers the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) a “disintegrated force” which has lost all its cohesiveness.

“The ULFA is today a disintegrated force. Its members today do not know who exactly is their leader,” said Singh, who as GOC of the Army’s Four Corps based at Tezpur, had launched the first massive offensive against the ULFA in 1990. And Singh has reasons to drive home his point. “If it was a cohesive force, the ULFA would have reacted and responded positively to the repeated appeals that the Government has been making to it to come forward for talks,” he added.

He said whatever little support the ULFA had among some people of the state had also waned away in recent times. “There is hardly anything called a support base left for the ULFA. The Assamese society is no more scared or bothered about the ULFA. The Assamese people have long rejected them,” he said.

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Singh also pointed out the recent losses suffered by the militant group in the hands of the security forces and indicated that the cadres were beginning to come out and surrender.

On Saturday, six ULFA militants surrendered to the Army at Tamulpur in Baska district. With 14 others who had earlier surrendered on Thursday, the number of ULFA militants who have surrendered in the current month has gone up to 20.

When pointed out that the ULFA was still striking at will in different places including Guwahati, which has a high security cover, Singh described it as typical of militants on the run. “When militants are on the run they strike here and there to make their presence felt. They require publicity,” he said.

Five ULFA cadres had also surrendered in August, while security forces eliminated as many as 27 militants in the Lower Assam region alone during the current year, while over 200 have been apprehended and handed over to the police.

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The six ULFA cadres who surrendered on Saturday included a woman cadre named Jainali Das, who was trained in Bhutan in 1999 and had since been operating with Hira Sarania in Barpeta, Nalbari, Golpara and Guwahati.

The Army on Saturday claimed that intensive operations had caused demotivation among the ULFA cadres, prompting them to give up.

Meanwhile, an outbreak of malaria in an ULFA hideout inside the Manabhum reserved forest in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh also claimed two senior militants. A press note issued by the Army said two senior ULFA cadres, self-styled ‘Sergeant Major’ Bhawani Hazarika and ‘Sergeant Major’ Ghanakanta Gogoi died of malaria, following which their bodies were dumped on a roadside by their colleagues.

“Intelligence inputs indicate that many more ULFA cadres staying in various camps are sick and are in urgent need of medical attention,” a press note issued by the Army’s Four Corps headquarters said.