Insurgency / Northeast

NEW DELHI, February 18: The Bangladesh Government has been yet again furnished with a detailed list of camps being run by the Northeast militant outfits including the ULFA in the country, with a plea for firm and demonstrable action against the rebels. The response by the Bangladeshi official delegation headed by Mohammed Janibul Huq, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, was hardly heart-warming for India, as it did not have anything new to add to their often-repeated assurance of not allowing soil of their country to be used for anti-India activities. The issue figured at a...

GUWAHATI, February 15: The growing links of the militant outfits of the Northeast region with foreign countries is causing concern among the security forces engaged in the counter-insurgency operations. Police sources said that at present almost all the major militant outfits operating in the region have foreign links and their leaders very often take shelter in foreign countries to escape the security net. Sources revealed that the first recorded links between NE militants with foreign countries dated back to 1960s when the Naga militants established contacts in China. In fact, the Isak...

GUWAHATI, February 11: The people of Bhutan have expressed their willingness to take up arms, if necessary, to evict the ULFA and Bodo militants from Bhutan, said a report in the Himalayan Kingdom's state run weekly Kuensel. Pressure is mounting on the Government of Bhutan to evict the ULFA and NDFB militants from the territory of Bhutan as the Bhutanese people have expressed concern over the presence of the militants. The continued presence of the ULFA and Bodo militants has become an increasingly serious threat to the security and sovereignty of the country and could take away the peace and...

NEW DELHI, February 10: The growing warmth in the ties between India and Myanmar is likely to see opening of the barriers for cross-border movement of people through Northeast to the neighbouring country. When the Foreign Minister of India, Jaswant Singh, will cross the international border at Moreh in Manipur on Tuesday morning he may well mark the beginning of the opening up of the border with Myanmar for movement of people. The External Affairs Minister heading a delegation of Indian Government will be in Myanmar on a three-day official visit to the country, first since late Rajiv Gandhi's...

GUWAHATI, February 5: Insurgency in Assam cannot be compared with that of Jammu and Kashmir as Pakistan's role in Kashmir was direct, said the Union Home Minister, L K Advani. Addressing a Press conference here today, Advani virtually ruled out the possibility of a unilateral ceasefire in Assam and said that all decisions in respect of Jammu and Kashmir are adopted taking into account the role of Pakistan. The Union Home Minister said that talks and violence cannot go together and the ULFA must abjure violence for talks. He said that the government of India is willing to hold unconditional...

GUWAHATI, January 28: The King of Bhutan has said that if Bhutan failed to convince the militants belonging to the ULFA and NDFB to leave Bhutanese soil through peaceful negotiation, it would be left with no alternative but to resort to military action. Addressing the people's representatives of Sarpang area of Bhutan recently, the King said that the ULFA and NDFB cadres were seasoned militants, who had been fighting the Indian Army for years. He pointed out that the ULFA and the NDFB militants entered Bhutan in the early 1990s to escape from the military operations launched against them by...

GUWAHATI, January 25: The Centre has once again urged Bhutan to flush out ULFA and Bodo militants from the jungles in the southern part of the Himalayan kingdom. Official sources said a senior Union home ministry official made the request on the Centre's behalf during a meeting with Bhutanese bureaucrats at the Bhutan Embassy in New Delhi last night. Bhutanese ambassador Dago Tshering was present at the dinner meeting between G.K. Pillai, joint secretary in charge of Northeast affairs in the Union home ministry, and a team of visiting officials from the Himalayan kingdom. Giving details of the...

PURUM, January 20: The Union home ministry will be convening a meeting of the four chief ministers of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya soon to thrash out the question of extending the ceasefire between the government of India and the NSCN(IM) into all Naga inhabited areas falling within their states. This was stated by the Union joint secretary home, in charge of the Northeast, GK Pillai during a meeting with media persons at Purum in the Senapati district on January 18. However, Pillai either out of deliberate omission or unintended slip did not mention the Arunachal Pradesh chief...

GUWAHATI, January 18: The Union Law Ministry has given its green signal to the proposal to set up a judicial commission to probe into the alleged insurgent - politician nexus in the Northeastern States. The Joint Secretary (Northeast) of the Union Home Ministry, GK Pillai told The Assam Tribune that in view of the allegations and counter-allegations of nexus between insurgents and political leaders, the Union Home Ministry mooted a proposal to set up a judicial enquiry commission headed by a Supreme Court Judge to probe into the allegations. The mater was referred to the Union Law Ministry for...

A Naga separatist group in India's troubled north-eastern region says two of its bases inside Burma have been attacked this week.

The chief of the military wing of the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), Khitobi Zhimomi, told the BBC that Burmese troops smashed two of his bases in the Sagaing division of western Burma this week.

Former army chief General Malik: Made two visits to Burma

He described this as a major attack and said only a timely withdrawal from the two bases saved the NSCN guerrillas from suffering major losses.

However, he did not rule out...