TEZPUR, Dec 27 ? Four ULFA members including the founder of the outfit Bhimkanta Buragohain were today handed over to the State police by the army authorities here. According to official sources the ULFA men besides Bhimkanta Buragohain (78) popularly known as Mama are Captain Dr Amarjit Gogoi, Bolin Das and the 66-year-old political advisor to Mama, Robin Handique.
Sources talking to The Assam Tribune disclosed that the Army also handed over cash amount of Rs 2,6,588 (Indian currency) along with three AK-56 rifles, two pistols, two handsets, one satellite phone, one satellite phone set, one decoder, 600 rounds of Ak ammunition, four magazines and 19 rounds of ammunition which were recovered from their possession after they were handed over to the Indian Army by the Royal Bhutanese Army on Thursday. Senior police officials of the district could not be contacted for comments.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army operating here in counter-insurgency operations under Lt Gen Mohinder Singh, GOC 4 Corps and the operational head of the Unified Command structure has set up a helpline. A PIB (defence) issued here stated that militants who are desirous to lay down their arms and want to join the mainstream can contact phone number 03712-255180.
PTI adds in Guwahati : The ULFA, NDFB and KLO, suffering heavy reverses in Bhutan?s jungle, have banned trading and business by any individual or industrial house from Assam, ?Bodoland? and Kamtapur? with any Bhutanese individual or corporate house from midnight last till the end of what they call India?s ?proxy war?. The three organisations also banned movement to and from the Bhutanese soil to the three regions from midday yesterday till the hand-over of the last body of its cadres killed in the Bhutan army?s offensive against Northeast-based militants and access granted to POWs.
A joint e-mailed statement to local media here last night alleged that the Bhutan government had declined to show or return bodies of their cadres and access to any of the captured despite Thimphu declaring publicly through its official press statement that 180 combatants were killed in the ongoing fighting and 500 others taken as prisoners of war.