In what could be an alarming development on insurgency fronts, the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom is targeting boys from poverty-stricken communities of the state and recruiting them into the outfit.
Disclosing that there are reports of boys from Mising, Motok and Moran communities joining the Ulfa, authoritative security sources in the home ministry told this newspaper that fresh recruitment drive of the outfit has taken the strength of the Ulfa to about 350 cadres.
Pointing out that the Mising community of the state never supported Ulfa, security sources regretted that growing unemployment, non-development and backwardness of Mising areas was driving them to take up arms with Ulfa. Asserting that home ministry has specific input on Mising boys recruited by the Ulfa, security sources said that most of these new recruits are taken to Burma and some camps in Kharsiang area of Arunachal Pradesh.
The Misings, which is the second largest tribe in Assam and one of the largest tribal groups of Northeast, are an ethnic group inhabiting the districts of Dhemaji, North Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Jorhat of Assam.
Describing it an alarming development, security sources said poverty and backwardness of the Mising group had come to focus few years back when a large number of families converted themselves into Christianity in Dhemaji and Majuli areas.
Referring inputs from the ground, security sources said that majority of the cadres in Ulfa are from Motok and Moran, the community alleged to have been left out in the process of development. Security sources said the elusive Ulfa chief was focusing on to revive the strength of the outfit.
besides enhancing its support which was diminishing.
Admitting that money was still flowing to the coffer of militant outfits, security sources however blamed the state for its failure in winning over the confidence of businessmen and industrialists in habit of “buying peace” from militant outfits.