By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS
Guwahati : From sympathy and support to revulsion, the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is beginning to feel the heat from locals in Assam with incidents of separatist rebels being lynched or captured on the upswing.
The latest in a series of brutal assaults by the public on ULFA militants has come in from village Jaraguri in Golaghat district, about 280 km east of Guwahati.
On Monday, ULFA’s self-styled sergeant major Manoranjan Doley of the outfit’s most potent 28th battalion was lynched by angry villagers and two of his accomplices were seriously wounded after a failed extortion bid, highlighting a growing public outrage against the rebels.
The ULFA leader, accompanied by two of his associates, demanded an unspecified extortion amount from Sajal Chakraborty, a village council leader belonging to the opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).
“The trio entered the AGP leader’s house and first slapped him before Doley fired a few rounds from his pistol. There was a hue and cry and soon a crowd of locals rushed to Chakraborty’s house and overpowered the militants,” a police official said.
It was a free for all — the crowd rained kicks and blows and hit the trio with crude implements. Before police could reach the spot, the three were already splattered with blood.
“We shifted the three to a hospital, but doctors declared Doley dead on arrival. The other two are stated to be in a serious condition,” the official said.
Monday’s incident is the seventh such fatal attack on ULFA rebels by irate villagers — six others were lynched in similar circumstances in different parts of Assam in the past three months.
“There is a massive public outcry against the ULFA with locals lynching militants in recent weeks…this is a strong indicator that people are no longer scared of the ULFA and there is a palpable revulsion against terrorism,” Lt Gen B.S. Jaswal, General-Officer-Commanding (GOC) of the army’s Four Corps, told IANS.
Lt Gen Jaswal is also the chairman of the operational group of the Unified Command structure in Assam where a massive anti-insurgency operation is on against the ULFA.
The assault by the villagers on the ULFA trio came a day after the outfit triggered four separate blasts in eastern Assam killing five people and wounding more than 50, besides damaging two gas and oil pipelines.
“The ULFA is staging such attacks out of desperation although their support base in rural areas is dwindling by the day. Moreover, there is constant pressure from security forces on the rebels,” said Assam police chief R.N. Mathur.
The ULFA has been at the receiving end since the temporary ceasefire with the government was snapped in September last year.
During the past 12 months, beginning September 2006, the Army’s 2nd Mountain Division, based in eastern Assam, has neutralised scores of ULFA militants.
“We have neutralised 177 ULFA militants since Sep 24, 2006 including one battalion commander (Rajiv Kalita of the ’27th battalion’), four company commanders, 10 action group commanders and seven experts in improvised explosive devices (IED),” an army official said.
Before the latest serial bombings Sunday, the ULFA was blamed for a string of attacks and explosions across Assam since January in which about 120 people were killed, most of them Hindi-speaking migrant workers.