Ban on ULFA likely to be extended this month

Guwahati, May 6 (UNI) The ban on North East's most powerful militant outfit, ULFA, is likely to be extended by another two years this month, official sources said here today.

The Unlawful Activities Prevention Tribunal will conduct a hearing from May 9 to 11 in New Delhi on the extension of the ban on the outfit.

The Central Government first banned the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in 1990 under the Unlawful Activities Act, prompting the outfit to go underground.

While categorically hinting that the ban would be extended in all likelihood, official sources said the tribunal would take an account of the activities of the outfit across the state in the past two years.

The tribunal would hear statements of the Army, government, intelligence and police officials, including the Superintendents of Police of the insurgency-affected districts, before giving its nod for the extension of the ban.

The hearing came against the backdrop of the ULFA being listed in the ''groups of concern'' by the United States.

In a list, released by the US State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism last week, 43 militant outfits, including the ULFA and the Communist Party of India (Maoist), had been designated as 'groups of concern'.

On the ULFA, the report said it was an ''ethnic secessionist organisation in Asom.'' '' The group's objective is an independent Asom. The outfit trains, finances and equips its cadres for a liberation struggle, while extortion helps finance military training and weapons purchases. ULFA conducts hit-and-run operations on security forces in Asom, selective assassinations, and explosions in public places,'' the report further stated.

At home, New Delhi classified the ULFA as a terrorist organization, and accused the outfit of maintaining links with the ISI of Pakistan and the DGFI of Bangladesh, and waging a proxy war on their behalf against India.

A Home Ministry report said Asom had witnessed 156 insurgency-related incidents from January to March this year, and a majority were carried out by ULFA. During the same period last year, the number of incidents was only 85.

Moreover, 99 civilians had been killed in the state from January to March this year, as against 31 in the corresponding period last year.

The ULFA, the most powerful and organized militant outfit of the North East, was floated in the historic Ranghar in Sivasagar on April seven, 1979.

US-based intelligence service Stratfor said, '' While initially the organization aimed to purge the Assamese government of corruption through an armed struggle and to redistribute the state's oil wealth to the poor, the ULFA, over the years, has developed into a powerful, moneymaking machine that relies on Bangladesh for its protection.'' Since the birth of the ULFA, at least 12,000 people had lost their lives to insurgency in the state.

UNI