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Security alert to foil ULFA plan

By Staff reporter

GUWAHATI, May 24 � The hardline faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has hatched a plan to target Congress offices in different parts of the State on the eve of the visit of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the State on May 26. Meanwhile, all the police and security forces engaged in the counter-insurgency operations have been alerted to thwart any such attempt by the militants.

Highly placed security sources told The Assam Tribune that senior leaders of the hardline faction of the ULFA have issued instructions to the cadres on the ground to target Congress offices wherever possible. A few small groups of the ULFA are inside Assam and it is still not known whether any new cadres managed to sneak into the State from the bases of the outfit in Myanmar in recent days.

According to information available with the security forces, a group is moving around in the Sonari area in Sivasagar district , while, another group is in the Chabua area. Another group of ULFA men are in Arunachal Pradesh and they may try to sneak in, while, the group headed by Drishti Rajkhowa, which is in Garo Hills may also try to strike. Sources said that the ULFA hardline faction has a number of improvised explosive devices and grenades with them and the possibility of the militants hiring others to plant IEDs or to lob grenades also cannot be ruled out.

Sources revealed that for quite some time, the ULFA hardline faction leaders have been issuing orders to the cadres in the State to indulge in acts of violence to make its presence felt and to show its strength as the flow of funds to the coffers of the militant group is also drying down as the majority of the people who received demands from the outfit refused to pay the demanded amounts.

Security sources said that the ULFA might also try to target oil pipelines as in recent past, several such attempts were made but the attempts were foiled with the timely recovery of the explosives. �The possibility of one or two grenade or IED blasts cannot be ruled out, but the ULFA does not have the capability of indulging in any major violence,� sources added.

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