Suspected ULFA insurgents had set off the two blasts in quick succession on Sunday night, killing 13 people and wounding 50 others.
NEW DELHI: The twin blasts in Guwahati, suspected to have been carried out by ULFA, has set off a rethink on the strategy to be followed with regard to the outfit. Union Home Secretary VK Dggal, who left for Guwahati to take stock of the situation, said after a security scenario review that no organisation had claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks but the government suspected ULFA’s role.
Besides Duggal, top security officials, including Director General of Military Operations, Director General of Military Intelligence, Director General of CRPF, attended Monday’s meeting which reviewed the security situation in the state.
Suspected ULFA insurgents had set off the two blasts in quick succession on Sunday night, killing 13 people and wounding 50 others, 15 of them seriously, in the busy Fancy Bazaar and Noonmati areas of Guwahati. Preliminary investigation revealed that programmed time devices (PTD) had been kept on bicycles at the blast sites. ULFA was known to use bicycles to plant PTD or Improvised Explosive Devices to attack soft civilian targets, as it is easy to move and park at public places without raising suspicion.
This was the first major attack by the ULFA since the banned group nominated Peoples’ Consultative Group for peace negotiation with the Centre in October 2005. The ULFA and the Indian government called off peace talks in September this year, after the Centre ended a truce with the rebels who were insisting on release of their top leadership as a precondition to proceeding further with negotiations.
Even when the cease fire and talks were on, there were reports of ULFA reviving its camps along the Bhutan border, while continuing extortion and rebuilding its cadres. When its bases in the area and in Bhutan were destroyed in a joint Indo-Bhutan army operation in 2003, it broke ULFA’s back. The army had also expressed reservations about the peace talks, accusing ULFA of using this phase for furthering its interests.
Security agencies report that ULFA’s budget for 2005-06 was Rs 70 crore, up by 10 per cent from previous year. A statement issued by the army, apparently “involuntarily”, said: “The people of Assam need to know the source of these finances and the roaring export business enterprise being run by the ULFA in Bangladesh and the opulence in which their leaders live.” The army also accused ULFA of involvement in a fake currency racket with ISI backing.
Home Secretary Duggal, speaking to journalists, said one cannot achieve the desired goal by killing innocent people. “In such cases, we will have to take appropriate action,” he added. He said the government was for peaceful negotiation and had sent invitation to the ULFA leadership for talks, response of which was still awaited.
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