The home ministry is seriously worried about three-pronged strategy of elusive Ulfa chief Paresh Baruah who even after all resistances of the state police has recruited more than 120 new cadres in the past six months, revamped its political wing and extorting money from leading business houses in Assam.
Most of the new recruits are from Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Sibasagar districts of Assam. Disclosing that these new cadres are being trained in Burma camp of Ulfa, authoritative security sources regretted that the state police was under estimating the reviving capacity of the Ulfa or ignoring it but facts remain that they are still getting cadres to carry forward their armed struggle in the state.
The security sources also lamented the casual approach of the state administration, which is alleged to have not been following up their alerts to check the extortion by the Ulfa rebels.
The killing of Kapil Bora, a hardcore Ulfa rebel with two others in Arunachal Pradesh by the Army has also exposed that many Ulfa cadres who were allowed to get out on bail have gone back to Ulfa chief Paresh Baruah’s fold again or some of them are suspected to have been working for the Maoists.
The home ministry had alerted the state administration recently, referring specific names of four business houses, being threatened by the Ulfa for extortion but the state home department instead of taking action, circulated the names of those Guwahati-based businessmen to all the district SPs and DCs. Pointing out that it was not required, the security sources said that such action of the state administration may dissuade businessmen from approaching the security forces.
Security sources said that taking the refrain of concrete evidence, the state police was also reluctant in mounting pressure over ground sympathisers of the outfit.
Meanwhile, elusive Ulfa chief has already declared to revamp political wings of the outfit to carry forward its quest for “sovereign” Assam.
In a statement to the local media anti-talk faction of the Ulfa has indicated that the outfit has started exercise to fill the vacuum created by Arbinda Rajkhoiwa’s departure and that the permanent political set-up of the outfit will be made public in November.