The United Liberation Front of Asom is creating terror in Assam on behalf of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intellegence agency, a top army official heading anti-insurgency operations in the state said on Friday.
"The ULFA is fighting the jehadi war on behalf of the ISI and taking help from jehadi elements. No doubt they (ULFA
leaders) are in a foreign land and are under the control of the ISI, which is calling the shots and asking them to do what
it wants," Lt General R K Chhabra, who heads the Unified Command Structure, told reporters.
The ULFA is outsourcing explosives and improvised explosive devises from the jehadi elements, he said.
"At the moment, the jehadis are like backroom boys. They do the gun-running, drug supplying and run fake note rackets," he said.
Asked if the army was targeting such jehadi elements in its anti-militancy operations in Assam, Chhabra said, "We are
not gunning for a particular group though ULFA is the largest group here. We take action against jehadis or any anti-
national elements."
Security forces operating under the Unified Command Structure had achieved major successes in the recent months,
breaking ULFA's backbone by killing a large number of its commanders and busting the banned group's camps in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, he claimed.
Put on the back foot, the ULFA's strike force, the 28 battalion operating in upper Assam, had also been weakened,
Chhabra asserted.
The leaders of 28 battalion were under pressure even though new cadres had been recruited to replace those killed
during operations and gun battles, he said.
K Anurag in Guwahati adds:
Meanwhile, ULFA has called upon all political parties in Assam to join hands to mount pressure on Government of India to provide information about whereabouts of 'missing' ULFA leaders whose wives are on indefinite fast since March 21 last.
Lt Gen Chhabra said that the hunger strike was a ploy by the ULFA to divert people's attention from core issues of violence and extortion perpetrated by the militant group in the state.
In the editorial in the latest issue of its mouthpiece, Freedom, a copy of which was e-mailed to the media, the insurgent group warned that in case something unwanted happened to the fasting women, the political parties in the state should
remain ready to face its consequences.
Regarding the on-going battle in court after a habeas corpus petition filed by wives of 'missing' ULFA leaders, the ULFA said even the Indian judiciary had failed to elicit proper information from Government of India in respect
whereabouts of its 'missing' leaders.