Bibhu Prasad Routray
South Asia Intelligence Review, vol.6, no. 49, June 16, 2008
Counter-insurgency (CI) operations in Assam have shown little evidence of sustained success, both against the dominant United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and against peripheral groups such as the Black Widow (BW). Even as ULFA tends to consume a bulk of the state’s CI efforts, Districts such as the North Cachar (NC) Hills have, over the past five years, continued to remain affected by a ruthless localised stream of terror by the BW. Over these years, little change has been noticeable in the state’s abilities to restore order in this remote corner of Assam.
For a cadre strength of 300, out of which only a third is believed to be armed, BW’s ability to dominate Assam’s third largest District, spanning over 4,890 square kilometres, remains a fact. Past incidents suggest that the outfit, barely five years into existence, has not only been able to spread a complex web of terror across this District, but has, time and again, carried out terrorist strikes with extraordinary impunity.
The first five months of the current year have demonstrated a typical pattern in the attacks executed by the BW. Most of these attacks have targeted the Lumding-Silchar-Jiribam gauge conversion project of the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) in the NC Hills District. Portions of the 214 kilometre gauge hill section from Silchar to Lumding junction, meanders through the District. Such attacks are part of the outfit’s effort to interdict work on the East-West Railway Corridor and other railway projects in the District.
On May 15, BW militants fired on a two-coach patrol train between the Mupa and Kalachand Stations in the NC Hills District. The driver of the train, N.N. Bora, was killed, while three others were injured, in the incident. Three days earlier, on May 12, two persons were killed and another injured when BW militants attacked railway workers engaged at a construction site at Migrendisa under the Haflong Police Station. This attack occurred only a day after the attack by the BW on railway quarters at Thoibasti, where eight labourers had been killed. Earlier on March 24, three persons, including two railway employees, were killed and two others wounded, when BW terrorists carried out an attack on the Harangajao Railway Station. Militants used grenades and fired at least 90 rounds of AK-47 and INSAS rifle ammunition during the attack.
Following the May 15 attack, the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) suspended rail operations along the Silchar and Lumding Junctions and evacuated its project staff from the District. The suspension of rail operations not only led to an acute shortage of basic goods in the District, but also blocked the single rail route used to reach goods to roadheads to the States of Manipur and Mizoram.
Other major attacks by the BW in the NC Hills District during the current year include:
May 15: Suspected BW militants hijacked five cement-laden trucks and subsequently killed the five drivers and their five helpers near Krumgminglangsu village.
February 19: Five employees of a private cement factory, Vinay Cements, were killed while another was injured in an attack by the BW militants near Umrangsu town.
February 11: Four persons, including an Assam Police Battalion soldier, were killed and two more injured when BW militants ambushed a convoy of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd. Officials, 20 kilometres from Umrangsu in the NC Hills District.
January 14: Five persons, two Security Force (SF) personnel and three civilians were killed and another person was injured by BW militants in Umrangsu Town.
The BW had announced a three-month ceasefire on March 25, 2008, a day after its cadres carried out the attack on the Harangajao Railway Station, virtually replicating the example set by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), when the Bodo outfit had declared a ceasefire on October 8, 2004, after an orgy of violence claiming 32 lives in Sonitpur and Dhubri Districts between October 2 and 5, 2004. The State Government, then, had chosen to ignore the NDFB’s offer. The NDFB, however, had stuck to its ceasefire declaration, eventually forcing the Government to change track in April 2005. The BW’s patience, however, did not last that long. While the reasons behind the declaration of the ceasefire by the BW were not too clear, the State Government’s refusal to reciprocate made the group look for an opportunity to break away from what suddenly seemed to be a tactical blunder.
SF operations have not achieved significant results against the BW, except for the odd killing or arrest. In one of the few successes, on March 22, 2008, the 'deputy commander-in-chief' of the outfit, Franky Dimasa, was arrested, far from the NC Hills, in the Fatasil Ambari area in Guwahati city. Subsequently, a success to which it laid no claim was nevertheless ascribed to the Army: the BW blamed the Army for having carried out an attack on its cadres at Harelu on May 10, in which 12 militants were killed. Interestingly, the 8th Sikh Regiment of the Army did admit to a heavy exchange of fire between its personnel and BW cadres in the said location, but denied that any militant was killed. The BW used this pretext to revoke its self-declared ceasefire and initiated its latest killing spree. The Army remains categorical that no killings had occurred on that fateful day at Harelu and the BW’s claim is only a ploy to resume its activities.
Following the May 15 attack on the patrol train that led to the suspension of train services throughout the District, the BW came out with another face-saving measure. On May 19, it lifted its ‘ban’ on railway project activities and said that the evacuated railway staff could return to the District. It further described the gesture as a commitment to peace in the District and squarely blaming the State Government and the Army for the escalation in violence.
High profile militant attacks have invariably elicited war cries from the official establishment in Assam and the present instance was no different. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who heads the Unified Command Structure in the State, rebuffed BW’s renewed peace offer and announced that the Army had been instructed to conduct combing operations targeting the militants. SF presence in the District was augmented by moving in troops of the 57 Mountain Brigade posted at Masimpur in the neighbouring Cachar District to NC Hills. Other measures announced included:
Steps to rectify "operational weaknesses" in the counter-insurgency campaign by setting up a ‘local’ Unified Command Structure in association with the 3 Corps. The Unified Command Structure that plans and executes counter-insurgency operations in Assam does not cover N C Hills. Troops deployed in the District come under the Rangapahar-based 3 Corps (in Nagaland), unlike the Tezpur-based 4 Corps of the Army (in Assam), that combats insurgency in the rest of the State.
Deployment of 2,000 additional ex-servicemen in the District to ensure the security of railway personnel and those working for the broad gauge conversion and the East-West corridor projects in vulnerable stretches.
Identification of 57 points in the Lumding-Badarpur Hills section of the railway project in the District as most sensitive. Security measures have since reportedly been tightened in 52 of these points.
There is ample reason to believe that such announcements are mere fire-fighting measures, intended to pacify certain quarters, without sufficiently enabling the SFs to take on and neutralize the militants. Within two days of announcing the deployment of 2,000 ex-servicemen in the District, the Chief Minister, on May 20, declared that the "response to such a proposal has not been good" and hence, the Government would now "form an auxiliary force with 1,000 surrendered militants." It needs mention that the use of surrendered ULFA (SULFA) cadres in CI operations has been the source of severe controversy in Assam.
As has been previously argued in SAIR, apart from the geographical advantage that this hilly District offers to the militants, persisting weaknesses in the Police administration continue to undermine the capacity of the SFs to restore a hold over the law and order situation.
This District has 175 Police personnel per 100,000 population but, crucially, less than seven Police personnel per 100 square kilometres. Six reserve forests and vast stretches of unclassified forest areas, accounting for 4,630 square kilometres – roughly 95 percent of the District’s territory – make NC Hills a veritable nightmare for such a thinly spread Police force. The entire District is administered by only four Police Stations and seven ‘non-sanctioned’ Police outposts. Vast stretches of the District’s territory thus remain entirely un-policed, serving as free hunting grounds for the militants. The fear of the marauding militants, coupled with the highly inadequate resources available with the Police, makes it almost impossible to establish any channels of effective intelligence and information. In the words of a former Police officer who served in the District, "The Police knows nothing. Even when it does, it is not capable of doing anything."
A year ago, in June 2007, the NC Hills District had hogged news headlines following the killing of two local high-profile politicians belonging to the Congress Party at the hands of the BW. Both politicians were engaged in a negotiation at one of the outfit’s hideouts, asking it to scale down its extortion demand before the polls to the Autonomous District Council (ADC) elections. The killing of the two led to the postponement of the elections. Later the Congress Party withdrew from the fray and the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine emerged victorious.
Following the June 2007 killing, the Assam Government had rushed in additional Central Para-military Force (CPMF) companies into the District and had announced several measures, including the setting up of four new Police Stations and a ‘full-scale Army flush-out’ operation in the NC Hills and the neighbouring Karbi Anglong District. As usual, by the time the dust settled down, the Government suffered a memory lapse. None of the announced measures, except for the transfer of the District Police chief, were actually implemented. The ‘full-scale Army flush-out’ was translated into a routine sweep operation in some of the militant strongholds, making little or no impact on the outfit’s capacities. The ‘sanitised’ areas quickly deteriorated, once again, into ‘liberated’ zones.
CI operations targeting the BW cadres are reportedly continuing in NC Hills. However, not a single BW cadre has either been arrested or killed so far, since the May 15 attack. The movement of trains during the night and work on the Railway projects continue to be suspended. However, the BW has also not been involved in any significant attack in the District, although some activities have been reported from neighbouring Meghalaya. A clueless Government of Assam continues to debate its response to the outfit’s ceasefire offer. In the consequent stalemate, an eerie silence that favours the BW’s future consolidation prevails over the NC Hills.
For a cadre strength of 300, out of which only a third is believed to be armed, BW’s ability to dominate Assam’s third largest District, spanning over 4,890 square kilometres, remains a fact. Past incidents suggest that the outfit, barely five years into existence, has not only been able to spread a complex web of terror across this District, but has, time and again, carried out terrorist strikes with extraordinary impunity.
The first five months of the current year have demonstrated a typical pattern in the attacks executed by the BW. Most of these attacks have targeted the Lumding-Silchar-Jiribam gauge conversion project of the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) in the NC Hills District. Portions of the 214 kilometre gauge hill section from Silchar to Lumding junction, meanders through the District. Such attacks are part of the outfit’s effort to interdict work on the East-West Railway Corridor and other railway projects in the District.
On May 15, BW militants fired on a two-coach patrol train between the Mupa and Kalachand Stations in the NC Hills District. The driver of the train, N.N. Bora, was killed, while three others were injured, in the incident. Three days earlier, on May 12, two persons were killed and another injured when BW militants attacked railway workers engaged at a construction site at Migrendisa under the Haflong Police Station. This attack occurred only a day after the attack by the BW on railway quarters at Thoibasti, where eight labourers had been killed. Earlier on March 24, three persons, including two railway employees, were killed and two others wounded, when BW terrorists carried out an attack on the Harangajao Railway Station. Militants used grenades and fired at least 90 rounds of AK-47 and INSAS rifle ammunition during the attack.
Following the May 15 attack, the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) suspended rail operations along the Silchar and Lumding Junctions and evacuated its project staff from the District. The suspension of rail operations not only led to an acute shortage of basic goods in the District, but also blocked the single rail route used to reach goods to roadheads to the States of Manipur and Mizoram.
Other major attacks by the BW in the NC Hills District during the current year include:
May 15: Suspected BW militants hijacked five cement-laden trucks and subsequently killed the five drivers and their five helpers near Krumgminglangsu village.
February 19: Five employees of a private cement factory, Vinay Cements, were killed while another was injured in an attack by the BW militants near Umrangsu town.
February 11: Four persons, including an Assam Police Battalion soldier, were killed and two more injured when BW militants ambushed a convoy of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd. Officials, 20 kilometres from Umrangsu in the NC Hills District.
January 14: Five persons, two Security Force (SF) personnel and three civilians were killed and another person was injured by BW militants in Umrangsu Town.
The BW had announced a three-month ceasefire on March 25, 2008, a day after its cadres carried out the attack on the Harangajao Railway Station, virtually replicating the example set by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), when the Bodo outfit had declared a ceasefire on October 8, 2004, after an orgy of violence claiming 32 lives in Sonitpur and Dhubri Districts between October 2 and 5, 2004. The State Government, then, had chosen to ignore the NDFB’s offer. The NDFB, however, had stuck to its ceasefire declaration, eventually forcing the Government to change track in April 2005. The BW’s patience, however, did not last that long. While the reasons behind the declaration of the ceasefire by the BW were not too clear, the State Government’s refusal to reciprocate made the group look for an opportunity to break away from what suddenly seemed to be a tactical blunder.
SF operations have not achieved significant results against the BW, except for the odd killing or arrest. In one of the few successes, on March 22, 2008, the 'deputy commander-in-chief' of the outfit, Franky Dimasa, was arrested, far from the NC Hills, in the Fatasil Ambari area in Guwahati city. Subsequently, a success to which it laid no claim was nevertheless ascribed to the Army: the BW blamed the Army for having carried out an attack on its cadres at Harelu on May 10, in which 12 militants were killed. Interestingly, the 8th Sikh Regiment of the Army did admit to a heavy exchange of fire between its personnel and BW cadres in the said location, but denied that any militant was killed. The BW used this pretext to revoke its self-declared ceasefire and initiated its latest killing spree. The Army remains categorical that no killings had occurred on that fateful day at Harelu and the BW’s claim is only a ploy to resume its activities.
Following the May 15 attack on the patrol train that led to the suspension of train services throughout the District, the BW came out with another face-saving measure. On May 19, it lifted its ‘ban’ on railway project activities and said that the evacuated railway staff could return to the District. It further described the gesture as a commitment to peace in the District and squarely blaming the State Government and the Army for the escalation in violence.
High profile militant attacks have invariably elicited war cries from the official establishment in Assam and the present instance was no different. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who heads the Unified Command Structure in the State, rebuffed BW’s renewed peace offer and announced that the Army had been instructed to conduct combing operations targeting the militants. SF presence in the District was augmented by moving in troops of the 57 Mountain Brigade posted at Masimpur in the neighbouring Cachar District to NC Hills. Other measures announced included:
Steps to rectify "operational weaknesses" in the counter-insurgency campaign by setting up a ‘local’ Unified Command Structure in association with the 3 Corps. The Unified Command Structure that plans and executes counter-insurgency operations in Assam does not cover N C Hills. Troops deployed in the District come under the Rangapahar-based 3 Corps (in Nagaland), unlike the Tezpur-based 4 Corps of the Army (in Assam), that combats insurgency in the rest of the State.
Deployment of 2,000 additional ex-servicemen in the District to ensure the security of railway personnel and those working for the broad gauge conversion and the East-West corridor projects in vulnerable stretches.
Identification of 57 points in the Lumding-Badarpur Hills section of the railway project in the District as most sensitive. Security measures have since reportedly been tightened in 52 of these points.
There is ample reason to believe that such announcements are mere fire-fighting measures, intended to pacify certain quarters, without sufficiently enabling the SFs to take on and neutralize the militants. Within two days of announcing the deployment of 2,000 ex-servicemen in the District, the Chief Minister, on May 20, declared that the "response to such a proposal has not been good" and hence, the Government would now "form an auxiliary force with 1,000 surrendered militants." It needs mention that the use of surrendered ULFA (SULFA) cadres in CI operations has been the source of severe controversy in Assam.
As has been previously argued in SAIR, apart from the geographical advantage that this hilly District offers to the militants, persisting weaknesses in the Police administration continue to undermine the capacity of the SFs to restore a hold over the law and order situation.
This District has 175 Police personnel per 100,000 population but, crucially, less than seven Police personnel per 100 square kilometres. Six reserve forests and vast stretches of unclassified forest areas, accounting for 4,630 square kilometres – roughly 95 percent of the District’s territory – make NC Hills a veritable nightmare for such a thinly spread Police force. The entire District is administered by only four Police Stations and seven ‘non-sanctioned’ Police outposts. Vast stretches of the District’s territory thus remain entirely un-policed, serving as free hunting grounds for the militants. The fear of the marauding militants, coupled with the highly inadequate resources available with the Police, makes it almost impossible to establish any channels of effective intelligence and information. In the words of a former Police officer who served in the District, "The Police knows nothing. Even when it does, it is not capable of doing anything."
A year ago, in June 2007, the NC Hills District had hogged news headlines following the killing of two local high-profile politicians belonging to the Congress Party at the hands of the BW. Both politicians were engaged in a negotiation at one of the outfit’s hideouts, asking it to scale down its extortion demand before the polls to the Autonomous District Council (ADC) elections. The killing of the two led to the postponement of the elections. Later the Congress Party withdrew from the fray and the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine emerged victorious.
Following the June 2007 killing, the Assam Government had rushed in additional Central Para-military Force (CPMF) companies into the District and had announced several measures, including the setting up of four new Police Stations and a ‘full-scale Army flush-out’ operation in the NC Hills and the neighbouring Karbi Anglong District. As usual, by the time the dust settled down, the Government suffered a memory lapse. None of the announced measures, except for the transfer of the District Police chief, were actually implemented. The ‘full-scale Army flush-out’ was translated into a routine sweep operation in some of the militant strongholds, making little or no impact on the outfit’s capacities. The ‘sanitised’ areas quickly deteriorated, once again, into ‘liberated’ zones.
CI operations targeting the BW cadres are reportedly continuing in NC Hills. However, not a single BW cadre has either been arrested or killed so far, since the May 15 attack. The movement of trains during the night and work on the Railway projects continue to be suspended. However, the BW has also not been involved in any significant attack in the District, although some activities have been reported from neighbouring Meghalaya. A clueless Government of Assam continues to debate its response to the outfit’s ceasefire offer. In the consequent stalemate, an eerie silence that favours the BW’s future consolidation prevails over the NC Hills.
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