From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Even as the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) anti-talks faction is rearing its ugly head once again in Assam, it has added to woes of Tarun Gogoi government that is already burdened with tackling waves of floods and the unprecedented communal riot and its after affects.
After keeping a low-profile after larger section of its senior leaders led by Arabinda Rajkhowa opting for peace talks with the government of India, the ULFA hawks led by its fugitive commander in chief Paresh Barua who is suspected to be taking shelter in Myanmar, has managed to regroup to some extent in certain eastern Assam pockets and inside areas in Arunachal Pradesh bordering Assam.
According to a security source, the cadres of the anti-talks ULFA faction have infiltrated into different parts of the State taking advantage of the security forces preoccupation with the riot that broke out in western Assam areas in July and continued till August this year. The consequence has manifested in grenade and bomb blasts in various parts of the State including the heart of Guwahati city during the last one month or so.
The anti-talks faction of the ULFA has floated a new armed group called United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) in Arunachal Pradesh with some local youth from Arunachal Pradesh.
Meanwhile, a blast and subsequent fire was reported from a Group Gathering Station of the ONGC at Borhola in upper Assam’s Jorhat district o Saturday morning, with the hardliner ULFA claiming responsibility for the act.
However, ONGC authorities claimed that there was no bomb explosion, but the some technical snag stoked the ire in the GSS.
A major fire broke out in the GGS, which threatened to spread to adjoining areas, but was later brought under control. There are no report of any casualty.
The hardliner ULFA, in an emailed statement, however, claimed responsibility for the blast and said it was in line with its ‘armed resistance’ against the ‘colonial’ agencies.
It further claimed that the blast in GGS was also in retaliation of alleged murder of two Assamese youths, Manoj Konwar and Nirup Das, by Sivsagar Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Singh.
The outfit has been blaming Mr Singh of masterminding the alleged cold-blooded murder of Konwar and death of Das in a blast recently in Sivsagar.
The ULFA’s anti-talks faction also maintained that the youths arrested by the police from Sivsagar and Dibrugarh in connection with the Sivsagar blast were not its cadres.
The outfit has a history of targeting gas and oil pipelines and had also claimed responsibility of a few recent fires in different refineries of the state. (with inputs from UNI)