The ULFA Connection

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is a separatist armed outfit from Assam in India. According to its website its main objective is to liberate Assam through 'Armed national liberation struggle' from the clutches of illegal occupation of India. From 1979 it was involved in many terrorist attacks in India. It is claimed that it gets ammunitions from China, gets training from Pakistan and have secret camps inside Bangladesh to use the porous border to get in and out of India.

Last year, when Bangladeshi security forces were on a large manhunt to find the persons behind the 8/17 nationwide bomb attacks by JMB, two captured Islamic militants confessed that ULFA had a link with those attacks. The links between these terrorist outfits do not fit the logic that those terror attacks were to establish Islamic sharia law in Bangladesh, as the JMB leaflets claimed. It points to a deeper conspiracy.

Recently an ULFA commander arrested by the Indian security forces admitted that 11 ULFA fighters led by him lobbed grenades and fired assault rifles into the Awami League rally, trying to assassinate ex-prime Minister and opposition leader Sheikh Hasina. And the most shocking of claims:

"Some Bangladesh intelligence officials helped us plan the assault and even gave us the vehicles for the assault that morning, but I don't know these Bangladeshis."

Awami League reacted quick on this issue saying that the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami alliance masterminded the assault on the opposition Awami League.

ULFA denied the accusations and said that the Indian authorities extracted the confession after heavy torture and threat. Meanwhile, Awami League leader Zillur Rahman, whose wife Ivy Rahman died in that attack smelt conspiracy in this:

"This is absolutely baseless. There's no reason for ULFA to attack our leader Sheikh Hasina,"

The Bangladesh authorities have agreed to probe the claim by the ULFA millitant. However The ULFA reportedly has bigger interest in Bangladesh.

According to Hindustan Times:

ULFA, the most active insurgent group in northeastern India, is pumping nearly $6 million for 15 candidates in the upcoming polls. The ULFA leadership has managed to stay in Bangladesh for close to 15 years regardless of the party in power, be it pro-India Awami League or Khaleda Zia- led BNP.

The new government will have the authority to decide either to give shelter to ULFA leaders and cadres or to hand them over to India.

With their involvement in the terrorist attacks in Bangladesh or the killing of the poor Biharis in Assam, ULFA is proving that they are just a mercenary group quite deviated from their agenda of liberating Assam.

And I think Bangladesh government should make their positions clear in not supporting ULFA under any circumstances. If the above allegations are not true they should say it boldly. It should launch investigations to apprehend the ULFA terrorists responsible for attacks in Bangladesh.

Update: The Bangladesh Government cleared its position :

"The eastern frontiers with India will be tightened further by the caretaker government to stop the activities of (Indian) guerrillas from inside Bangladesh. They will not be allowed to set up camps on Bangladeshi soil,' the Bengali daily Ittefaq quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.

According to it, the caretaker government will also make sure that Anup Chetia, secretary general of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), now serving a prison term in Bangladesh for illegally entering the country, is not allowed to spearhead a guerrilla from a Bangladeshi prison."