Insurgency / Assam

GUWAHATI, June 3 ? The efforts of the Central and State Governments to bring the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) to the negotiating table are yet to yield the desired results primarily because of the adamant attitude of the chairman of the outfit, Ranjan Daimary alias Nabla Daimary, highly placed security sources said here.

Sources said that efforts are on through different channels to bring the militant outfit to the negotiating table but at the same time, the Central Government is of the view that there is no point talking with other leaders of the outfit until Ranjan Daimary...

Guwahati, June 2: After seeing the dialogue between the Centre and the NSCN (I-M) stutter because of minimal political involvement in the process, the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD) today demanded negotiations with Delhi ?at the highest political level? instead of talks with a bureaucrat interlocutor.

In an exclusive interview to The Telegraph, DHD commander-in-chief Pranab Nunisa said his group wanted either the Prime Minister or his deputy to participate in the proposed peace talks instead of leaving the job to bureaucrats.

?The demand we have raised is a political one and it should be discussed at...

NEW DELHI, June 2 ? In a significant step aimed at checking movement of militants across the Indo-Bhutan border, Government has designated the Special Services Bureau to man the frontier, reports PTI. The step has been taken in the wake of recent reports that militants of North-East and extremists of North Bengal were using this route to infiltrate and exfiltrate, official sources said here today.

The Home Ministry is also examining a proposal to raise additional battalions of the force, created under Cabinet Secretariat in 1963 and brought under Home Ministry last year, to meet the...

Guwahati/Silchar, June 1: The truce between the Centre and the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD) hangs by a thread with the militant outfit accusing security forces of ?provocative actions? against its members and the Hmar community of persecuting the Dimasas.

With only a month left for the six-month ceasefire to end, the DHD is undecided on whether it should extend the term of the agreement.

DHD vice-president Dilip Nunisa said over phone from Haflong, the headquarters of North Cachar Hills, that his outfit was alarmed by the situation in the district and in two minds on the issue of extending the...

Guwahati, May 30: Ulfa commander-in-chief Paresh Barua seems to be living the charmed life of a cat with nine lives: he reportedly survived the fifth attempt on his life by unidentified gunmen in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Like on the previous four occasions, this time, too, there has been no official confirmation from the Bangladeshi authorities on the incident. Even the Bangladeshi media has come out with reports denying the news of the latest ?attack? as ?baseless?.

The mass-circulated English daily Independent quoted the new commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Md. Ashraful Huda as saying...

GUWAHATI, May 22? For the forest guards of Assam, armed with outdated weapons, it is becoming impossible to deal with heavily armed militants, who frequent the reserve forests as well as poachers who have also started using sophisticated weapons like AK Series rifles. The Minister of State for Forest Pradyut Bordoloi admitted that the forest guards are hopelessly under-equipped to check felling of trees and movement of militants. For example, most of the forest guards in Kaziranga National Park are armed with only .315 rifles, while, in a recent incident of poaching, the poachers used AK-47...

Guwahati, May 20: Ulfa ideologue and the outfit?s vice-chairman, Pradip Gogoi, today said a military operation by Bhutan to dismantle militant camps there would be the ?wrong move?.

Reacting to a report in The Telegraph today about Thimphu?s plans to dismantle all camps of the Ulfa and the NDFB by November, the jailed militant leader told newspersons outside a Tada court here that Bhutan could not expect to resolve the issue through aggression.

The Ulfa alone has nine camps in Bhutan.

Gogoi, who has been languishing in jail in Guwahati since his arrest in Calcutta in 1997, said Bhutan should...

Guwahati, May 20: Ulfa vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi, in jail since 1997, today lambasted the All-Assam Students? Union (AASU) for ?diluting? the issue of infiltration by foreigners and making ?too much noise? over the proposed repeal of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act.

In a no-holds-barred attack on the student organisation, the Ulfa leader said, ?Those who signed the Assam Accord in 1985 should be pulled up. Why didn?t they insist that the Act, promulgated in 1983, should be repealed or amended before signing the accord??

He said the infiltration issue must be seen from...

GUWAHATI, May 19: The Royal Government of Bhutan has called upon its nationals to voluntarily join a government militia force to fight and remove the ULFA, NDFB and Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO) rebels operating from bases inside the tiny Himalayan kingdom, reports today said.

"When the security and sovereignty of our country is under threat, the true sons of the soil must step forward and not wait to be called upon to serve their country," Bhutan?s King Jigme Singhye Wangchuk was quoted as saying by Kuensel, the country?s national newspaper.

Addressing a group of people?s...

NEW DELHI, May 19 ? Alarmed at the presence of Northeast militants on its soil, Bhutan has decided to set up a counter-insurgency force to fight them and asked India to ensure that no more militants enter the tiny Himalayan Kingdom, reports PTI. ?They (North-east militants) have to be made to leave the country before they strengthened their presence in Bhutan,? a senior Bhutanese official Sonam Tshering was quoted as saying on the internet edition of government funded newspaper Kuensel.

Bhutan has asked militants to wind up their camps before June 30 failing which Government would take...