By IANS
Guwahati : A front ranking commander of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has surrendered to the army even as the rebel group accused the authorities of killing its members in “fake encounters”.
Pranjal Saikia, a ‘company commander’ of the ULFA’s dreaded strike force called the ’28th battalion’, surrendered Wednesday at Dinjan, headquarters of the 2nd Mountain Division, located in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh district, an army official said.
Saikia was believed to have been based in Nepal for some time before the surrender.
Security officials would not comment on the Nepal connection, but it is believed that the ULFA has some links with a section of the Maoists in that country.
“Saikia’s surrender is significant because he has been a key commander of the ULFA’s 28th battalion and it goes to show that rebel leaders are on a re-think mode on the group’s methods to achieve its objective,” the official said.
On Sep 17, Prabal Neog, 43, the commander of the ULFA’s ’28th battalion’ was arrested by the Assam Police during a routine vehicle check on a highway in the northern Sonitpur district.
From its bases across the border in Myanmar’s Sagaing division, the hit squads of the ’28th battalion’ roam the eastern Assam districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Sivasagar, attacking soft targets.
Last year, Mrinal Hazarika, who used to command the ’28th battalion’ before Neog, was captured from a hotel in Siliguri in West Bengal, along with three of his colleagues, jolting the ULFA’s fighting unit.
In the last 12 months, the army’s 2nd Mountain Division, based in eastern Assam, has neutralised scores of ULFA militants.
“We have neutralised 178 ULFA militants since Sep 24, 2006 including one battalion commander (Rajiv Kalita of the ’27th battalion’), five company commanders, 10 action group commanders and seven experts in improvised explosive devices (IED),” said an army official.
On Thursday, meanwhile, the ULFA accused security forces of killing its cadres in “fake encounters” across Assam and said that the central government was not keen on a peaceful resolution of the problem.
In the latest edition of its mouthpiece called Freedom, circulated through e-mail, the ULFA has said that the group and its objectives could not be “annihilated” by killing its cadres.
“The enslaved mothers of Assam will give birth to ULFA again. Our freedom struggle will go on till India restores the basic human rights of our people and their inalienable birth rights of sovereignty and independence,” the ULFA said in its mouthpiece.