Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI, NOVEMBER 27
The Assam government has alerted the forces after suspected militants of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) gunned down a Hindi-speaking man and injured two others in a pre-dawn attack at Lakhimpur on Thursday.
The attack was perpetrated on the employees of a petrol depot by two motorcycle-borne assailants at around 1:30 am. One Kumud Rai was killed on the spot. The injured are also Hindi-speaking people.
The attack came in less than a week of the explosion in a truck at Moran in Dibrugarh district in which two people were killed and around 30 others were injured. Most of the injured were Hindi-speaking people.
Assam’s Director General of Police (DGP) Khagen Sarma said the forces had been alerted in view of the stepped up activities of the militants.
“We have sent an alarm (to the forces). But I would say their capability is minimal when it’s a selective target. But, there are chances that they could go for soft targets,” he said.
Whenever the Ulfa has an issue or two with the government, it selectively targets the Hindi-speaking people. They are the outfit’s soft targets. Some outfits in the state relate Hindi to the government at the centre. Given the past experiences, the Hindi-speaking people living in the state have appealed to
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi led ruling Congress government in the state to take adequate measures to thwart the attacks.
The police on Wednesday sounded a high alert in Guwahati following receipt of inputs that two ULFA militants had sneaked into the city to carry out terror attacks in the lead-up-to the two-day conference of DGPs and IGPs on November 29-30, which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The Assam DGP on Thursday said: “The threat is high as the militants are trying to carry out attacks.
But we have graduated to cope up with such threats”.
He said the nexus between the jihadis and the extremists will be high on the agenda for discussions at the DGPs’ conclave, which will be attended by all heads of the paramilitary forces and other agencies, related to national security.
“It’s a very high level conference wherein discussions will be held on national security and national integration. We will discuss a whole lot of issues but the focus will be on the nexus between jihadis and extremists and the Left wing extremism,” Sarma added.
Meanwhile, Ulfa military chief Paresh Baruah on Thursday asked the Modi led central government to give information about 26 cadres who have been missing after their arrest during the 2003 Indo-Bhutan joint offensive against the militants. Baruah threatened that the outfit would target all BJP programmes if the government failed to do so by January 10.
