A terrorised state, helpless cops and a rising anti-ULFA movement

Guwahati, May 20 (UNI) An anti-ULFA wave is slowly gaining speed in Asom, with people rising against recurring onslaught by the outlawed outfit, official sources said here today.

This is for the first time in 27 years that the people in Asom have become proactive in defending their interests of safety and political security.

Overwrought by persisting bloodshed, the general public had galvanised their anger into action, coming out onto the streets and even taking on the rebels hand-to-hand in various parts of the state.

''When the people will rise against their atrocities, it will not take much time for the ULFA to relinquish,'' said Abhijit Sarma, director of Assam Public Works (APW), an anti-ULFA organization.

The locals of Barpeta Road in lower Asom yesterday caught two ULFA cadres while they were in the area for extortion.

The people even dared a grenade attack, which injured several of militants, but eventually handed them over to the police.

''It is a good sign. The people should wake up in every corner of the state. This will boost the efforts of the security forces,'' a senior police official said.

Similar manifestation of anti-ULFA activities was apparent when the public of Fancy Bazar in Guwahati came onto the streets on May 18 following a blast near the Central Jail which left at least 13 people injured.

On May 17, local residents of Dergaon in Golaghat district of upper Asom blocked the NH-37 protesting the killing of three Hindi-speaking people in the district by the ULFA.

A week ago, villagers at Borhat went a step further by lynching two ULFA extortionist to death.

According to Home Ministry records, 156 incidents of violence were reported in Asom from January to March this year, and almost all of them were triggered by the ULFA.

Over 125 civilians had lost their lives to insurgency since January this year.

Floated in April 7, 1979, the ULFA had virtually lost whatever public support it had garnered since its birth after an explosion triggered by it during the Independence Day function at Dhemaji, which killed 13 people, including eight school children and two pregnant women in 2004.

The Dhemaji incident sparked off a spontaneous outburst against the militant outfit throughout Asom, reminiscent of a similar public anger when the ULFA killed social worker Sanjoy Ghosh in Majuli in 1997.

While three rounds of talks between the Centre and the People's Consultative Group (PCG), a mediator group nominated by the ULFA, failed to make any headway for negotiations. The unabated violence sponsored by the outfit, including the gruesome killing of over 80 Hindi-speaking people in January last, had added to the public anger.

The ULFA wants a commitment from the Centre that all core issues, including the issue of 'sovereignty', would be discussed during the proposed direct talks. While the Centre is not willing to give in to the demand, it had been insisting on direct communication from the outfit regarding the place, time and participants of the talks.

Over 30,000 people had been killed in the state in insurgency-related incidents in the last two decades in Asom and the state remained a complex miasma of politics and violence as the militants continued to blow hot and cold.

Giving a fillip to the anti-ULFA wave is the APW, an organization comprising the family members of those who were either killed of kidnapped by the ULFA.

''The ULFA must answer what was the fault of these killed and kidnapped.The APW would continue its protests against the atrocities of the ULFA across the length and breadth of the state till the outfit stopped its bloody activities,'' said its director Abhijit Sarma.

Hinting at the week-long national highway blockade in Doomdooma in Upper Asom which ended only after six people were killed in ethic clashes that broke out due to food shortage the blockade had created, Mr Sharma said, ''Protests should not be stressed beyond a limit for ulterior motives.'' He warned the ULFA that its days are numbered as the people of the state had started realising that the leadership of the militant outfit was working for their own good, forsaking the welfare of the state at the hands of foreign nations.

UNI