Insurgency / Assam

April 4: A day after Ulfa militants attempted to blow up an LPG bottling plant near Guwahati, security forces intercepted coded wireless messages about the banned outfit’s plans to carry out a series of strikes in the run-up to its “raising day” on April 7.

Army units operating in Upper Assam, especially the contiguous districts of Dibrugarh and Tinsukia, were placed on maximum alert immediately after the messages were intercepted. One of the messages was “Let’s go for the Bihu dance”, probably alluding to an order to strike at an unspecified target.

The Ulfa was formed on April 7, 1979, in...

Silchar, April 4: The roots of the ethnic clashes between Hmars and Dimasas in the south Assam districts go back to the last week of February. Attacks were masterminded by militants of the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD), an eight-year-old outfit of Dimasa tribals in North Cachar Hills district.

Dimasa militants went on the rampage in the district?s Balmul and Multhajao villages near Harangajao township on March 3.

The DHD had signed a ceasefire with both the Centre and the state government last December in New Delhi in the run-up to peace parleys over the demand for granting the status of an...

Silchar/Guwahati, April 4: The army was called out in North Cachar Hills district of Assam and asked to be on standby in nearby Cachar as the orgy of ethnic violence continued to torment tribal-inhabited villages and the body count mounted.

Alarmed by the worst ethnic flare-up in the state since the Bodo-Adivasi clashes in Lower Assam, the Assembly decided to send a peace mission to the affected areas tomorrow. Speaker Prithibi Majhi will lead the delegation.

Police officials in Silchar said panic-stricken Dimasas lynched a Kuki tribesman, mistaking him for a Hmar, in Diongmukh village of...

GUWAHATI, April 4 — Several organisations representing the Hmars had been warning a Nastul Pahar – like retaliatory action by the Hmar extremists in case of the failure of the State administration to rein in the marauding Dima Halong Daoga (DHD), the Dimasa militant outfit, which has allegedly been carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign in North Cachar Hills District and in parts of Cachar District.

Even on March 31 last, the leaders of the Hmar Supreme House – the Hmar Inpui, the Hmar National Union, the Barak valley Hill Tribes Development Council, the Hmar Students’ Association, Mizoram...

GUWAHATI, April 4—Alarmed at the ethnic flare-up in Cachar district areas along the Assam-Mizoram border where Hmar People’s Conference (HPC) extremists have killed at least 23 Dimasa villagers, the State Assembly today decided to rush an all-party team headed by the Speaker Prithbi Majhi to take stock of the situation in the violence-affected areas. The speaker announced that the House team would leave early tomorrow even as the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi underlined the need for evolving a coordinated mechanism by all the NE States to fight insurgency jointly.

In response to a Zero Hour...

GUWAHATI, April 3: In one of the most gruesome incidents of terrorist violence in the State, the bodies of 22 persons kidnapped by Hmar People’s Convention (HPC) in Cachar district were recovered this evening from the dense jungles at Nastul Pahar, five kilometres from Sonai PS in Cachar district. It may be mentioned that 28 persons from the Dimasa community of three villages of Cachar district were kidnapped by the Hmar ultra outfit. Police said that the victims of the massacre were shot from a very close range and were killed the very next day after their abduction. Most of the bodies were...

GUWAHATI, April 3 — Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today informed that the Government of India was yet to take any concrete initiative to man the unguarded Indo-Bhutan border in the State to prevent infiltration of extremists from their camps in Himalayan kingdom. Talking to newsmen here this morning, Sri Gogoi said, “Although the State Government has been insisting on deployment of the BSF along the unmanned Indo-Bhutan border, the Centre has decided to deploy SSB personnel. However, no step has been taken so far to deploy even the SSB along the international border through which ULFA and NDFB...

HAFLONG, April 2— To create awareness among the public in demanding autonomous State under the Article 244(A) of the Constitution, and in protest against the misrule of Congress in NC Hills Autonomous Council a monthlong agitational programme has been chalked out by the NC Hills ASDC in its joint extended meeting of ASDC/DSU/DWS held on March 26 at ASDC office, Haflong.

On April 8, the ASDC/DSU/DWS would organise dharna from 10 am to 4 pm in front of the NC Hills Autonomous Council, Haflong in protest against the misrule of Congress(I) in NCHAC. From April 10 to 23, ASDC/DSU/DWS would hold a...

Silchar, April 2: Dima Halam Daoga vice-president Dilip Nunisa has threatened to call off the ceasefire following an attack by a Hmar outfit on the Dimasas on Monday.

Nunisa told The Telegraph over telephone today that the outfit would be ?forced to call off the ceasefire, which came into effect on January 1, and return to the jungles if the government fails to protect the lives and property of the Dimasas?.

A red alert had been sounded in both Cachar and North Cachar districts apprehending retaliatory clashes between theHmars and Dimasas.

Assam veterinary minister G.C. Langthasa, a Dimasa...

GUWAHATI, April 2 – Three witnesses including BBC East India Correspondent Subir Bhowmik were today produced at the ad-hoc sessions court of Justice P K Phukan in connection with the killing of AVARD NE chief Sanjay Ghosh at the hands of the ULFA. The other two witnesses were Jagat Rajkhowa and Kamal Hazarika, both residents of Majuli. The next hearing of the witnesses will take place tomorrow.