ULFA’s Success In Planting Bombs In Assam On I-Day Sends Out Ominous Signals

After a calm spell of many years, the proscribed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) faction led by hardliner Paresh Barua is back in the news. 

The ULFA (Independent), as Barua calls his faction, claimed in an email to some media outlets that it had planted 24 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) across the state, including eight in Guwahati.

The group stated that the bombs did not detonate due to a “technical failure” and urged citizens to cooperate in defusing the devices. 

Paresh Barua’s intention in planting the bombs was to demonstrate that his outfit is far from a spent force and retains the capability to strike at will. 

The IEDs did not explode because they were never meant to: they were planted merely to send a message to the state government and the people of Assam. 

The ULFA(I)’s success in planting these IEDs, especially on the eve of Independence Day celebrations when the state was under a heavy security blanket, represents a massive intelligence failure. 

That the ULFA operatives could evade the police and stay under the radar of the state’s intelligence machinery is, no doubt, a massive embarrassment to the state government. 

Paresh Barua has demonstrated that though he may be holed up in northwestern China, the ULFA(I) can strike at will in Assam. 

He also demonstrated that, despite efforts by the state government and central agencies to dismantle ULFA(I), the group still has cadres and operatives within the state.

The ULFA(I), in its email to the media houses, gave out the exact locations of the bombs it had planted at 19 locations but did not reveal where it had planted the five other bombs. 

Of the eight places in Guwahati where the bombs were planted, one was an open area near the high-security Dispur capital complex that houses the state secretariat and the residences of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, other ministers and many bureaucrats. 

Nothing could have been more embarrassing for the state government, especially the police force, than an unexploded bomb being recovered so near to the CM’s residence.

The remaining seven locations where the bombs were planted in and around Guwahati included a spot near the Narengi Army cantonment (on the outskirts of Guwahati), near the iconic Gandhi Mandap in the heart of the city, the busy commercial-cum-residential areas of Panbazar and Rajgarh, and the railway hub at Maligaon. 

The other places where the ULFA(I) planted the bombs were in Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Nalbari, Tamulpur, Tinsukia and Golaghat districts. 

The ULFA(I)’s success in breaching the security cordon, evading intelligence and security agencies and planting bombs virtually under the nose of the police calls for a massive overhaul of the intelligence and security establishment in the state. 

Not only the state and central intelligence agencies but also field formations of the police — the Guwahati Police commissionerate and the district police (in the districts where the ULFA-I could plant the bombs with such alarming impunity) — failed in their duties. 

Responsibility for this failure, which has caused deep embarrassment, must be addressed. Heads must roll to prevent a repeat of this. The bombs did not go off this time because the ULFA did not want them to. Assam may not be as lucky the next time. 

But more than the stark demonstration of its capability and potency by the ULFA(I), what’s more ominous is the timing of the entire incident. 

It comes close on the heels of the regime change in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina, who had been instrumental in driving the ULFA and other terror outfits of the Northeast from her country, has been ousted. 

Islamists are now in effective control of the country even though the USA’s protege Mohammad Yunus is the face of the interim government that is in power.

There is no doubt that when parliamentary elections are held, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami will storm to power in the country. 

The BNP-Jamaat has close ties with Pakistan’s ISI. During its years in power in Bangladesh, the BNP-Jamaat alliance sheltered ULFA and other terror outfits of Northeast India, allowing the ISI to train, finance, and equip these groups. 

The unceremonious and dramatic ouster of Sheikh Hasina from power in Bangladesh triggered fears in India that the BNP-Jamaat, likely to assume power in the Muslim-majority country, will adopt a hostile attitude towards New Delhi and once again shelter terror outfits of Northeast India. 

The planting of bombs across Assam could be a curtain-raiser act of sorts by Paresh Barua and a grim indicator of what the future holds with an Islamist and unfriendly regime in power in Bangladesh.