Insurgency / Assam

Nagaon, May 23: The Bodo Liberation Tigers has been disbanded and its leaders have long traded their guns for pens, but the erstwhile militant group’s violent yet successful campaign for an autonomous administrative council for the Bodo heartland has become the model for a tribal uprising elsewhere. Security forces deployed in central Assam are bracing for trouble with a fledgling militant organisation that claims to represent the Tiwa tribe announcing another movement for “self rule”. The Tiwa Liberation Tiger Force is only eight months old, though the pace at which the group has been...

GUWAHATI, May 19 – With its military strength gone after the operations carried out by the Royal Bhutan Army in December last year, the leadership of the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) is now on the verge of a split over the question of talks with the Indian government. And NDFB chairman Ranjan Daimary is apparently readying himself for it. Daimary has bought himself a piece of land in Myanmar with the intention of settling down there in the event that his lieutenants corner him.

Knowledgeable sources said here that the NDFB might never really recover from the setback...

LUMDING, May 13 – The people of Lumding in general and the employees of Lumding railway division in particular have expressed deep concern over the unabated extortions and killings in Karbi Anglong and NC Hills districts by extremists violating all norms of ceasefire.

The railway employees, through their trade unions, have submitted memorandums to the General Manager, Divisional Railway Manager, NF Railway and other concerned authority, expressing deep concern over the extortion in the form of monthly payment from the salary of the employees, extortion of high amount from the middle class...

Dhubri/Kokrajhar, May 10: Security forces have launched a fresh operation to flush out militants of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) from the Mahamaya forest in Dhubri district. The forces have also tightened security in the Adivasi and Bodo-dominated areas of the Lower Assam districts where ethnic tension is brewing.

Tension gripped the Adivasi and Bodo-dominated areas of Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts after two Adivasis were killed by suspected NDFB militants. The incident triggered retaliatory attacks by Santhal miscreants.

Residents alleged that the Kokrajhar district...

GOLAGHAT, May 8 – International underground organisations having links with militant outfits like the NSCN and the Karbi National Volunteer (KNV) have set up a market on the Assam-Nagaland border in Golaghat district to sell arms, drugs etc, to the local ultras.

Local people here alleged that extremist outfits, aided by international groups, have set up bases in the border areas from where they have extended their illegal trade in drugs and arms and ammunitions. Such anti-social activities have made life miserable for the people here.

It has also been alleged that militant outfits...

Silchar, May 7: Militant Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) has denied reaching an agreement with the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) to create fresh trouble in south Assam. The North Cachar Hills- based militant outfit, in a one-page statement faxed to The Telegraph here, said no such understanding was reached with the Bodo outfit, as alleged by Karbi Anglong deputy commissioner Anurag Goel.

In the statement, one Dao Raja, who identified himself as the publicity secretary of the outfit, said, “Since the DHD is observing a ceasefire with the authorities in North Cachar, there is no scope for...

Nagaon, May 6: Assam’s troubled Karbi Anglong district is on the boil again with the pro-talks faction of the United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) threatening an armed operation against the rival Karbi Anglong and N.C. Hills People’s Resistance, which allegedly abducted the siblings of two of its new members.

The publicity secretary of the pro-talks faction, Tong-Eh-Nongloda, today said his organisation had no option but to go after those who abducted the family members of Jeet Ranghang and Jeet Hanse, two militants who defected to his organisation before the election.

He said...

Nagaon, May 4: The pro-talks faction of the United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) today asked the apex organisation of the Kuki community to be realistic about its demand for a separate regional council for the Singhasan Hills of Karbi Anglong. It said the Kukis were neither an indigenous tribe of the district nor the dominant community in terms of population to deserve a separate regional council within the boundary of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council.

UPDS publicity secretary Tong-Eh-Nongloda accused both the Kuki National Assembly and the Kuki Inpi, Assam, of attempting to gain...

Nagaon, May 3: The Kuki National Assembly (KNA) today made it clear that a separate regional council for Kukis was the only way to end the ethnic feud in Karbi Anglong district. In a memorandum faxed to the Scheduled Area and Schedule Tribes Commissioner Dilip Sing Bhuira, the apex body of the Kuki tribe urged the commission to form a separate regional council under the Sixth Schedule for the 40,000 Kukis living in Singhasan Hills. The council should be modelled on the Pawi-Lakher Autonomous Council in the Lushai hills of Mizoram, it added.

“It is imperative for the commission to come to our...

Silchar, May 3: Army and police teams today fanned out into the jungles along Cachar district’s border with Meghalaya to look for members of a fledgling militant group that yesterday ambushed a Gorkha Rifles patrol party near Damcherra railway station. A member of the Pnar Liberation Army was killed and a soldier sustained injuries during the skirmish. The injured soldier was airlifted to the command hospital of the army’s Third Corps at Rangapahar, near Dimapur in Nagaland.

Sources at the 57 Mountain Division base at Masimpur, a few km from Silchar, said the militant group had set up camps...