Insurgency / Northeast

SHILLONG, May 7 — The North East Study Group (NESG) has identified militancy as a symptom and not the disease affecting the North Eastern region. “The disease is alienation from which the region is suffering”, it has observed. The Study Group headed by veteran administrator S K Agnihotri was constituted in 2001 by the Union Home Ministry to go into the problems of the region and suggest remedies thereto.

For the last fifty years, the North East has been deprived of attention and development by the Union government. “This has happened because the region is not on the radar of Delhi, J&K is”...

GUWAHATI, May 3 — Concerned State police officials at the ground level are yet to be given special instruction as a sequel to the agreements of Assam and Meghalaya governments to go for joint police operation against extremists active along the inter-State boundary. Police sources informed that although chief ministers of both the States recently announced the decision to go for joint anti-insurgency operations along the Assam-Meghalaya boundary areas, particularly in highly-infested boundary between Goalpara district in Assam and Garo Hills in Meghalaya, State police authority was yet to...

May 2: In the Eighties, elite soldiers of Saddam Hussein had undergone training on anti-terrorism combat at the Counter-insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, sprawled across 600 acres of rugged terrain at Vairengte in North Mizoram.

A week ago, even as US-led forces were bombing Iraq to eliminate the Iraqi president, American troops landed at the exclusive training centre for a three-week-long session in jungle warfare.

The joint Indo-US army exercise — codenamed “Balance Iroquois 03-1” or “Vajra Prahar” — was cloaked in utmost secrecy from the beginning to the end on April 26. “We maintained...

GUWAHATI, May 2— Taking Indo-US military cooperation to a new height, special forces of the two largest democracies recently held a joint combined exercise in Mizoram. The US will host Indian Special Forces in Guam in June for the next leg of the cooperation. Balance Iroquois 03-1 (Vajra Prahar), a three-week long joint exercise involving the personnel of the US Special Forces and an assault team from the Indian Special Forces Battalion concluded at the Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vareingte in Mizoram last Saturday, a press release from the Public Affairs Office of the...

GUWAHATI, May 2 — A nefarious design has been orchestrated by the Pakistani ISI to bring about a change in the demographic composition of the North East in general and Assam in particular. The design is being implemented by encouraging illegal influx from Bangladesh and propping up fundamentalist militant outfits imbued with a dream of a Islamic homeland.

Security sources told The Assam Tribune here that the infiltration problem in Assam is becoming graver by the day with little signe of any ebb in the flow of Bangladeshis crossing over into India. Most of them head for Assam and West Bengal...

AGARTALA, April 26 — In what can be called a fresh initiative for dialogue with the Mizoram government for early repatriation of the Reang (Bru) refugees presently sheltered in six camps in North Tripura district, a high level team of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) headed by a special secretary will visit the Reang (Bru) refugee camps. The team would among other things, ascertain the actual number of refugees in the six camps in Kanchanpur subdivision.

According to official sources, the central team will arrive at Agartala on April 30 next to settle the dispute over the total number of...

GUWAHATI, April 25 — The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is slowly, but steadily, establishing firm roots in Assam thanks to the support it is receiving from hardline Islamic fundamentalists and insurgent groups in the State, security sources informed here. In many ways, the ISI is now directing most of the anti-national activities in the State, they said.

According to the sources, the ISI is coordinating the activities of most of the insurgent outfits in the North East, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), the...

SHILLONG, April 22 — The idea of flushing out the northeast militant organizations—United Liberation Front of Asson (ULFA), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO) —from the soils of Bhutan through the joint army action by India and Bhutan has gradually faded away, reports North East Press Service. Although Bhutan Government had already appreciated the idea of joint military action to flush out the northeast militant organizations from its soil, the Government (Bhutan) had reportedly signaled the would-be consequences if such military action was...

GUWAHATI, April 22 — Chief Ministers of Assam and Meghalaya today agreed to launch joint police operations “whenever necessary” to fight insurgency along the inter-State boundary areas besides deciding to involve tribal district councils and Deputy Commissioners concerned of both the States in finding a solution to the age-old boundary dispute between the two States. At a crucial meeting held in Janata Bhawan here this afternoon, Chief Ministers Tarun Gogoi and DD Lapang agreed to maintain the status quo along the disputed inter-State boundary till a final solution could be arrived at.

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Somewhere along the Assam-Meghalaya border, April 20: The Achik National Volunteers Council (ANVC) has accused the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) of floating an associate outfit, the Hajong United Liberation Army, to cover up its “misdeeds” in Meghalaya.

ANVC general secretary Wanding K. Marak told a group of newspersons here today that his outfit was being blamed for crimes committed by the NDFB with the help of its associate. He pointed out that his organisation had been wrongly accused of abducting customs official Dipak Mahanta and six others from Mahendraganj last month....