By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS
Guwahati : In a major breakthrough, security forces in Assam Monday captured one of the region’s topmost insurgent leaders during a routine vehicle check at a highway, officials said.
Prabal Neog, who commands a crack battalion of the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), was captured along with his wife and child at a highway check point near Mission Chariali, 185 km north of Guwahati.
“Neog, who was travelling in a car, was arrested by Assam Police during routine vehicle checks. He gave up without any resistance,” said an Assam Police spokesperson, who wished not to be identified.
Neog, in his 40s, has been commanding one of ULFA’s most potent fighting unit, called the 28th Battalion, from bases in Myanmar as well as from within eastern Assam.
“Neog was personally guiding his fighters in carrying out bomb attacks besides looking after the huge extortion network of the group,” the spokesperson said.
The ULFA, fighting for a separate homeland since its formation 1979, is today the most potent separatist group in Assam and the whole of the northeast.
The group is responsible for the massacre of nearly 100 Hindi-speaking migrant workers in eastern and southern Assam since January.
“This is a major breakthrough in our counter-insurgency operations because Neog was the topmost ULFA commander operating in Assam,” an army official said on condition of anonymity.
Officials say the ULFA’s commander-in-chief and its chairman, besides other top leaders, operate out of Bangladesh, a claim Dhaka denies.