NDFB faction likely to strike’

MANOJ ANAND

GUWAHATI : National Democratic Front of Bodoland plans offensives in BTC before council elections, security sources said

The security agencies have alerted Assam that the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction) was piling up arms and ammunition in the Bodoland Territorial Council and may strike in a big way after September this year.

Informing that there is possibility of anti-talk faction of the NDFB joining hands with other struggling forces of the BTC, authoritative security sources told this newspaper that the defeat of all the Bodo candidates on the Kokrajhar Lok Sabha seat has forced the political and non-political forces of the Bodo community to rethink their stand.

Asserting that there was rethinking on uniting the forces fighting for Bodoland state separately, security sources said that this has also come in the wake of elections for the Bodoland Territorial Council in April 2015. The polarisation of the non-Bodo population, which is more than 60 per cent in the BTC, may prove to be another setback for the ruling Bodoland People’s Front.

Security sources said that the anti-talk faction of the NDFB has also decided to appoint a commander of Bodo origin as its commander-in-chief in place of I.K. Songbijit (not of Bodo origin), who may be promoted as chairman or given some advisory role in the outfit.

Referring to intelligence inputs emanating from the field, security sources said that the NDFB was smuggling sophisticated arms and ammunitions in the BTC in smaller numbers every week.

Claiming that the move was strategic, security sources said that some of the arms consignments of the NDFB were seized but the confession of some conduits involved in smuggling arms for the outfit revealed that many such shipments have reached their destination in the BTC.

Pointing out that anti-talk factions of NDFB considers the unity among the non-Bodo organisations, as a setback for the separate Bodoland movement, security sources said that attempt of driving out non-Bodo population from BTC at gun-point may not be ruled out.

Though, home ministry has decided not withdraw the central forces deployed in the BTC, security sources said that state government has also been informed in very categorical term to keep close watch on BTC.

Security sources however claimed that Assam government has also taken the alerts very seriously and decided to work out mechanism to foil any such attempt of creating unrest in BTC.