Satra disciples held for ULFA links

JORHAT, July 29: In a first-ever incident of its kind in recent memory, two disciples of Uttar Kamalabari Satra in Majuli were arrested in the wee hours today for maintaining alleged links with the ULFA. The arrested disciples, Krishna Ram Hazarika and Holiram Bora, landed themselves in the soup as the police recovered an SBBL gun and a bagful of ULFA-related documents from their Satra premises. The police swoop comes in the backdrop of vital information being provided by the ULFA cadre Pinku Dutta alias Manoj Gogoi, during interrogation. The militant was arrested by the Jorhat Police while travelling in a Kamalabari to Neamati-bound ferry on Wednesday. However, when contacted over telephone, the Satradhikar of Uttar Kamalabari Satra, Kamala Kanta Deva Goswami, clarified that he was awe-struck by the incident, "Only after talking to the duo following the arrests did I come to know that the recovered gun and documents in question were in fact those left behind by a now-deceased ULFA cadre, one Arup, who was involved in the Sanjoy Ghosh murder case of 1997. However, Holiram was of a fire-cracker brand right from the start", the Satradhikar added 'though of course they were devoted pupils". Starting Thursday afternoon, a string of arrests were made by the Jorhat police whereby three PCO operators were apprehended along with another three locals for maintaining links with the banned outfit. The PCO operators in question are Bijoy Shankar Bora, Prabhat Nath and Akash Saikia. Bijoy hails from Majuli and works at a PCO in the Masarhat area here while Prabhat, who is from Barpeta, works for a PCO at Tarajan. Akash on the other hand operated a PCO near the ASTC terminus by the Solicitor Road. The police claim that the trio were liaising with the ULFA in maintaining communication links with comrades outside the district. Militants from Majuli too utilised the services of these PCOs, according to revelations made by Pinku before the police. Further, following leads provided by the held extremist, the police recovered some live ammunition from a deserted house in the Neamati area and also arrested three youths of the area yesterday - Pulin Saikia, Diganta Das and Naba Kumar Sarma.