NIA starts probe into grenade attack in Assam

The National Investigation Agency has taken over the probe into the grenade attack at Kopahtoli camp of the Indian Army in Assam’s Tinsukia on November 22 by the United Liberation Front of Asom - Independent led by Paresh Baruah, officials said, adding that it will also look into the larger conspiracy behind such attacks.

Two more incidents of lobbing grenades at camps of security forces were reported in December – one near the Central Reserve Police Force camp on December 9 at Joysagar in Sivasagar district, and another near the army camp gate on December 14 at Jorhat military station, both in Assam.

The agency will look for common links in the three incidents since ULFA-I has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the officials said, seeking anonymity. Nobody was injured in the three blasts.

Last month, the Centre and Assam government signed a peace accord with the pro-talks faction of ULFA led by Arabinda Rajkhowa in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah.

Now ULFA-I is the only active insurgent group in Assam and there will soon be crackdown on its cadres as well, officers of the central agency said.

The Assam government last week withdrew security from outside Baruah’s residence in Dibrugarh who have been deployed there since 2000. Baruah has resisted the government’s peace overtures for more than a decade and formed ULFA-I in 2012.

ULFA-I has also threatened Assam police chief G P Singh. “We do not have any enmity with the Assam Police. However, we warn GP Singh not to stake claim over the Assam Police as his ancestral property,” the outfit said in a statement last month. Singh’s actions hurt sentiments of police and the indigenous people of the state, it claimed.

Singh responded belligerently to the message, saying ULFA-I can target him rather than hurl grenades in public places. “My office is at Guwahati’s Ulubari and I stay at Kahilipara, I am there, they can come to me. I’m not afraid of them,” he said last month.

At a conference of state police chiefs in Jaipur last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked law enforcement agencies to form joint task forces in the northeast to deal with insurgents who carry out attacks and flee to neighbouring Myanmar.

“One of the task forces may be formed with Assam and few other states to especially crackdown on ULFA-I,” an official said.