Jorhat/Nalbari, Apr 8 : Both the anti-talks and pro-talks factions of Ulfa unfurled the outfit’s flag in the state on its raising day today — one in the remote areas and the other in designated camps — as security forces intensified operations in Upper Assam.
A bag containing a live cartridge and Ulfa letterheads were recovered by a joint team of police and army from an under-construction building of a primary school at Kathora in Nalbari district. Two government employees were arrested.
Police sources said the anti-talks faction hoisted at least three Ulfa flags in the remote Namdeuri and Namrupia areas in Jorhat district and at Bormukoli in Golaghat district in the wee hours today but these were dismantled by the time the security forces arrived.
“We had received information about such a flag being hoisted in the Namdeuri area early this morning but we did not find the flag when we arrived at the place. If at all the flag was hoisted, Ulfa just wanted to show to the local people that it is still active,” a police official in Jorhat said.
The pro-talks faction also commemorated the day by hoisting flags in all its designated camps in the state this morning. A volleyball tournament, organised at Sipajhar in Darrang district, was inaugurated by Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa.
Security forces, on the other hand, intensified operations in Upper Assam today fearing that the outfit might try to carry out sabotage activities on its raising day. A police official said no untoward incident had been reported from any part of Upper Assam till late in the evening. “But we are not taking chances and are on the alert,” he added. Checkposts have been erected on all the major roads and vehicles are being frisked thoroughly.
Police sources said although the outfit had distributed extortion notes to businessmen, oil executives and tea garden owners in Upper Assam, there was no information of any person paying up in recent times.
“Many persons who received such notices have informed us and we are taking steps to thwart Ulfa’s attempts, ” a police official in Tinsukia said. He said the police are providing security to these persons, keeping tabs on phone calls of Ulfa cadres and had recently arrested three persons of a telephone company who distributed SIM cards to Ulfa cadres and linkmen.
In Nalbari, police said the bag was recovered from the school building, 17km from Nalbari, at 12.10am on the basis of a tip-off. They arrested Hitesh Kalita, a multi-purpose worker in the state health department, and Dipak Patowary, chowkidar of the school where the bag was found, after hand-drawn maps of their houses were found in the bag.
Police suspect the two were helping Ulfa’s anti-talks faction, led by its “commander-in-chief” Paresh Barua, and had kept the bag in the school building.
The police later picked up two others, including the gaonburah (headman) of Kathora village.
About a hundred residents, however, staged a protest in front of the office of Nalbari deputy commissioner this afternoon, demanding immediate release of the four.
The Paresh Barua group, in an email statement, denied that Kalita and Patowary were members of the group. It said they were “fake Ulfa” and the letterheads recovered were fake, too.
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