Facing the heat of intensified operations by the army the United Liberation Front of Asom has shifted some of its camps deep inside Myanmar from forest areas of Arunachal Pradesh bordering Eastern Assam.
Total 46 'disillusioned' ULFA militants have laid down arms in Assam in October much to the glee of the army and the police though the ULFA leadership has tried to make light of the development saying that surrender by some of its cadres who had failed to withstand the heat of the conflict at this critical juncture, will not affect its operations.
Giving a major blow to the proscribed outfit, commander of 'A' company of the ULFA's 28th battalion Pranjal Saikia surrendered before the Army last week. The ULFA's strike force, 28th battalion, earlier received a crippling blow when its commander Prabal Neog was arrested by the police in September while he was traveling to Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh via Tezpur in north Assam.
However, the security sources said the banned group's leadership had shifted many of its cadre based in eastern Assam areas to its camps inside Myanmar.
Senior ULFA leaders, Jibon Moran, explosive expert Amrit Ballav Goswami and Amrit Dutta, one of the accused in murder of NGO official Sanjoy Ghose in Majuli River Island in late 1990s, were among those hardcore cadres who were being kept under surveillance at camps in Myanmar.
The camps inside the Arunachal Pradesh forest areas have been serving as the launch pad for the ULFA's extortion as well as hit-and-run operations in eastern Assam districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Sivasagar. The army troops recently penetrated deep inside Arunachal Pradesh forest areas to evict ultras' bases there.
Besides surrender by its cadres, the banned ULFA also received blows from the security forces in the form of killing of some of its senior leaders by the army and police in the state of late including killing of Anirban Basu alias Ananta Duarah, a sergeant major of the 28th battalion of the ULFA.
