Dibrugarh, June 21: The “brain” of the Ulfa’s dreaded 28th battalion is back in action, sending security forces into a tizzy with a string of attacks in the twin districts of Dibrugarh and Tinsukia over the past few days. High-level police sources said quoting intelligence that the quartet of Prasanta Moran, Mridul Borpatragohain, Dibakar Moran and Antu Chowdang — known as master strategists — are back in the thick of action after the setback in Bhutan during the later part of last year.
“When these four leaders from the outfit’s 28th battalion get to work, it’s a bad omen,” a senior police official said.
Since the Ulfa was born in 1979 in the premises of the historical Rangghar in Sivasagar district of Upper Assam, the 28th battalion, also known as the “Kashmir camp” in the outfit’s lingo, has always been considered the fiercest of the five fighting battalions.
At present, the battalion is under self-styled commander Mrinal Hazarika, who plans the operations while the “brain” implements them. “The battalion has nearly 500 activists, armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons such as the AK series, UMG, MMG, RPGs and mortars,” a source said.
There are also unconfirmed reports that the Ulfa had also procured the highly sophisticated Insas rifle quite recently.
Apart from the quartet, leaders like Ujjwal Gohain, the finance secretary of the unit, Jiten Dutta, Rajen Dutta and Prabal Neog are still at large. “These second ranked leaders concentrate on serving extortion notes and the ‘brain’ provides them cover during their drives,” the source added.
Prabal Neog was earlier given charge of the 28th battalion after its self-styled commanding officer Tapan Baruah was killed in an encounter with the army a couple of years ago. But Neog was reportedly removed from his post by the outfit’s top brass for “failing to carry out big operations against security forces and government property” after the Bhutan crackdown.
The source said the recent attacks in the past few weeks in Tinsukia district is only part of the outfit’s pressure ploy for those who had been served with extortion notes. “They are hoping that the serial blasts will terrorise those served with extortion notes and they will pay up. They had also applied the same tactics last year on the Hindustan Lever Ltd,” he added.
The Ulfa had served an extortion note of Rs 2 crore on the Hindustan Lever Limited in October last year. The HLL, which owns tea gardens in Upper Assam, refused to pay up and appealed to the Centre and the army for security.
However, on November 26, Ulfa’s rocket-propelled grenades hit the residential complex of a Lever unit in Tinsukia district.