Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said that while other forms of insurgency in the state have been brought under control, the Maoists have emerged as a menace in Upper Assam. It has now been revealed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a Manipur-based banned rebel group has been training and supplying arms and ammunition to the Maoists in the North East since 2006. The Manipur outfit had set up an office in Kolkata to coordinate activities with the Maoists. In 2008, some top leaders of the CPI (Maoist) and a group of PLA members met in a foreign country and signed a joint declaration for a unified action to wage war against India. The PLA leaders visited Dandakaranya in Chhattisgarh in mid 2009 to examine the scope of setting up training camps for Maoists and two such camps were put up in Jharkhand in 2010.Where the arms came from still seems a mystery. There were Chinese communication devices. Indications are that smugglers from China and Myanmar had started a network for supplying arms and money.
All this comes too late. It appears that the far-flung operation has been on for six years. The NIA now has a complete file with dates and other data. Why Indian Intelligence Agencies had been asleep while such activities went on under their nose seems difficult to understand. Maoists in Upper Assam are already engaged in violence. The anti-talks faction of the ULFA is also in a belligerent mood. Gogoi’s complacence seems somewhat of an exaggeration. When will Assam be peaceful enough to pursue its development goals?