All Disquiet On The Eastern Front

Paresh Baruah has revived his faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam, and stitched up a deadly cross-border terror network called UNLFW to fight the Indian Army. He plans to internationalise the conflicts in India’s northeast. In response, India may launch a surgical strike.

- Rabi Banerjee

Around 11.45am on October 13, two days before Durga Puja celebrations were to start in Assam, a small explosion rocked a scrapyard in Guwahati’s Pan Bazaar area, injuring four people. Minutes after the blast, Paresh Baruah of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) telephoned a local television channel and claimed that ULFA(I) had set offthe explosion to oppose India’s attempt “to settle Bengali immigrants in Assam” through the revision of National Register of Citizens. Baruah, 61, has been fighting to establish a sovereign Assam for four decades.

The police, however, were sceptical of Baruah’s involvement in the blast. Deputy Commissioner of Police Ranjan Bhuyan ruled out any terror connection, saying, “The blast happened near a pile of sand kept for constructing a roadside drain. It may have had an unexploded shell which went off.” The injured, he said, were hit by stones; not shrapnel, as would have been in case of a bomb blast.

Barely three weeks later, on November 2, six militants in battle fatigues rode into Bisonimukh village in Tinsukia district and each of them seized a Bengali-speaking villager. The militants lined them up along a canal, made them kneel down, and fired. Five died; one fell, unconscious, into the water and survived.

This time, the police themselves announced that ULFA(I) was behind the attack. “We have investigated thoroughly and have come to the conclusion that the killings were carried out by ULFA(I),” said Pallav Bhattacharya, director-general of police (intelligence). “The style of the killings was similar to that of earlier ULFA killings. Even if an affiliate was involved, the onus is on ULFA(I).”

Interestingly, Baruah has neither owned up to the killings nor disowned them. When THE WEEK reached out to ULFA(I), a spokesman said, “We will send out a message at an appropriate time.”