At 2 pm, on April 6, 2009, eight persons were killed and 32 were injured in an explosion at Boripara near Maligaon Chariali in Guwahati city, adjoining State capital Dispur. The dead included at least one victim who jumped to death while trying to escape the fire that engulfed a nearby building as a result of the explosion. Less than two hours later, five persons were injured (one of them later succumbed to his injuries) in a bomb explosion at Mosjid Patty in Dhekiajuli town in the Sonitpur District, 180 kilometres northeast of Guwahati. Three hours later, a Home Guard was killed and a Police constable sustained injuries in a grenade explosion in front of Mankachar Police Station in Dhubri District, 270 kilometres west of Guwahati, along the international border with Bangladesh. Earlier in the day, in the southern hilly District of Karbi Anglong, unidentified militants detonated an explosion at Santipur near Bokajan, injuring two.
The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the most potent militant formation in the State, has been blamed for all but the explosion in Karbi Anglong, a claim that has not been denied by the outfit. Carried out on the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit to the State, these explosions have been seen as a bold challenge held out by ULFA. Dr. Manmohan Singh was scheduled to address an election rally at Dibrugarh, 450 kilometres northeast of Guwahati. Although he did land at the township on April 7, a hailstorm shelved his plans to ride a chopper to the meeting venue, barely 15 kilometres away. He had earlier been advised not to travel the distance by road. He returned without addressing the meeting. It is difficult to definitively confirm whether security considerations played any role in the decision of the Prime Minister, who is a Member of Parliament from Assam, to abandon the idea of travelling to the meeting venue by road. ULFA’s abilities to orchestrate explosions in the Upper Assam Districts (the eastern-most Districts of the State), of which Dibrugarh is a part, have been severely dented since June 2008, after two ‘companies’ of its primary strike force, the ‘28th battalion’, came over-ground, seeking a negotiated settlement. This ‘battalion’, one of ULFA’s three military formations (the 27th and 709th being the others), was based in Myanmar and was principally responsible for the outfit’s activities in Upper Assam. However, ULFA’s ability to carry out a succession of serial explosions, predominantly in the central or western Assam Districts, has given rise to an atmosphere of insecurity in the State, where very little can be taken for granted.
In fact, the outfit’s reliance on plastic explosives, predominantly aimed at inflicting mass casualties, appears to have increased significantly after the June break-up within the ‘28th battalion’. The mantle of ULFA’s principal strike arm has now passed on to the rejuvenated ‘709th battalion’, under the direct command of ULFA ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah. The ‘battalion’ is being led by senior functionaries such as Akash Thappa, Mukunda Rajbongshi alias Chilarai, and Pradeep Kalita. Through this ‘battalion’, ULFA has not only been able to hike its lethality within the relatively limited area of central and western Assam, but has also managed to time its attacks to match the arrival of various top officials from Delhi, including Union Ministers and the Prime Minister, in the State.
On March 31, an explosion had rocked Guwahati’s Jyotikuchi area under Fatasil Ambari Police Station, killing one person and injuring nine. On that day, Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukerjee was supposed to address a public gathering at Lalmati, two kilometres away from the explosion site. Assam Police, later, explained that the explosion was not related to the Minister’s rally. Similarly, on January 1, 2009, ULFA cadres triggered serial bomb blasts in three different areas of Guwahati city, killing five persons and injuring 50. The blasts went off just hours before the scheduled arrival of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
In a break from most past explosions, the SF establishment in Assam had adequate intelligence inputs regarding ULFA’s intentions to orchestrate attacks on or before April 7, the 30th Raising Day of the outfit. The State Police had, in fact, published photographs of two ULFA cadres – Manohari Rajbongshi alias Son and Pradeep Kalita alias Deep – who had supposedly entered Guwahati city to execute acts of sabotage before April 7. An intensive search operation had been conducted to nab the duo in various parts of the city. Union Home Minister Chidambaram confirmed, on April 7, that many advisories had been sent to the SFs as well as to the Government of Assam to remain extremely vigilant during this period. Chidambaram remarked, "The security forces, and especially the Assam Police, were on high alert and tried their best to secure the most vulnerable locations. It is unfortunate and deeply regretted that the adversary has been able to strike this time."
Interestingly, ULFA’s capacity to carry out the April 6 explosions had much to do with the novel tactics that the outfit has evolved and put to use in recent times. Although initially described by television channels as a car bomb explosion, probably due to the number of motorcycles and a lone car that caught fire in the Guwahati blast, subsequent investigations found that TNT explosives and ball bearings had been packed into the frame of a bicycle. A similar device had been used in Dhekiajuli. The Assam Director General of Police, G.M. Srivastava, later commented that there was no way to detect such concealed explosives unless someone weighed the bicycle. Thousands ride bicycles in Assam’s cities and weighing each bicycles is hardly a viable prospect. Moreover, in both locations-Guwahati and Dhekiajuli, the explosives were said to have been attached to four detonators each, in order to pre-empt the possibilities of malfunction. Explosions have remained the dominant mode of ULFA attacks for a number of years, but the group has succeeding in circumventing every effort by the SFs to effectively interdict these operations.
Another area, where the ULFA has been able to consistently outplay the SFs is through the use of new recruits in planting explosives. While the Assam Police has been able to build up a reliable database of senior and middle level functionaries of the outfit, its knowledge of the lower-rung cadre base is only partially developed. New recruits, with minimal training ranging between 15 and 30 days, with no prior criminal record, are used to place explosives at the target locations, a task for which ULFA had used unemployed youths and even school children on earlier occasions. The unknown faces of the new recruits escape the attention of Police spotters and the surrendered ULFA (SULFA) cadres, on whom the SFs rely heavily for militant identification. Such lack of knowledge was on display after the April 6 explosion in Guwahati, when a photograph that the Assam Police published as that of blast suspect Manohari Rajbongshi turned out to be that of an 18-year old youth, with no ULFA linkages. The photograph was quickly withdrawn and the Police said that the brother of the actual militant had misled them.
Another area where Police operations appear to have been severely handicapped is the minimal public cooperation it receives, not just in terms of ground level intelligence, but also in post-incident crisis-management. Possibly as a result of the long history of political collusion and consequent public disenchantment, Assam, in recent history has been the only theatre of conflict in the country, where the SFs have been forced to deal with a rampaging mob virtually after every incident of bomb explosion. The October 30, 2008, explosions had resulted in a berserk mob turning over Police and official vehicles and setting them afire. After the April 6 explosions, again, ‘angry’ mobs turning their ire on the Police and media personnel for over an hour.
Contrary to public perceptions, however, the Assam Police appears to have done fairly well, neutralising a number of ULFA cadres and recovering large quantities of explosives. Since just January 1, 2009, 15 ULFA cadres have been killed and 42 have been arrested in Assam. Among those killed were Tapan Roy, Paranjal Deka, Anupam Gogoi, Bhaskar Hazarika and Kushal Das – considered to be the better trained and experienced militants in the group. The Assam Police had also foiled 79 explosion attempts and recovered 376 kilograms of explosive during the same period in the State.
These achievements, however, have failed to curb the subversive potential of the militant formation, and this will constitute an enormous security challenges during the impending elections. Polls to elect 14 members to the Indian Parliament are scheduled to be held in Assam in two phases – on April 16 and 23. Of the total 18,829 polling stations across the State, 6,635 have been categorized as ‘sensitive’, 2975 as ‘very sensitive’, 440 as ‘hypersensitive’, while 8,779 are ‘comparatively safe’. While the Assam Government had asked for the deployment of 120 companies of Central Paramilitary Force (CPMF) personnel to secure the polls, it has been provided with just 75 companies.
The Assam Police Chief has promised "safe and secure" elections on both days of polling. The security plan chalked out by the Police, in the aftermath of the April 6 explosions, includes a provision for engaging retired police officials for round-the-clock surveillance work across the State, the identification of vulnerable areas, the establishment of a mechanism, in association with volunteers, citizens’ committees and traders, to intensify vigil in all vulnerable areas, observation of parking lots, regular cleaning of garbage bins and installation of close-circuit television cameras in strategic locations across the State.
Whether these measures will prove adequate to prevent further acts of subversion by ULFA, remains to be seen. What has been clearly demonstrated, however, is that the group retains significant capacities for disruption, which constitute a manifest threat to the electoral process, and are bound to impact, not only on the manner in which the elections are conducted, but also on future governmental policies in Assam.
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