Migrant killings: Top militant captured

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam suffered a major blow on Monday with the police arresting Prabal Neog...

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) suffered a major blow on Monday with the police arresting Prabal Neog, a self-styled commander of the outfit’s 28th battalion that was responsible for the attacks on Hindi-speaking people in upper Assam in January this year.

Neog (48) was held on the outskirts of Tezpur, which is also the headquarters of the Army’s 4 Corps which controls counter-insurgency operations in Assam. “Neog was arrested at a regular checkpost at Mission Chariali. He was travelling in a car with his wife Bonti Lahon (Pallabi Neog) and their two-and-a-half year old son,” Khagen Sharma, IGP (special Branch) of Assam Police said.

Neog was recently in Karbi Anglong with special assignment to revive the outfit’s 27th battalion that had suffered heavily last year. It was during his stay in Karbi Anglong hill district that the ULA teamed up with the Karbi Longir National Liberation Front (KLNLF) and killed 30 Hindi-speaking settlers.

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According to police dossier, Neog, who hails from Makum in Tinsukia district, is “a very good organiser and planner” for which he was appointed commander of the 28th Battalion in 2005 after the post fell vacant when Mrinal Hazarika was caught.

Neog’s arrest is considered a major disaster for the ULFA, especially in the Upper Assam where he was allegedly responsible for conducting extortion to the tune of Rs 2 crore a month from the industrial districts of Tinsukia and Dibrugarh.

Trained in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, Neog is considered a close aide of ULFA’s military wing chief Paresh Barua. He had joined the ULFA way back in 1984 and had remained loyal to Barua and chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa during 1991-92, when several hundred hardcore cadres had surrendered.

ULFA against Hindi films

GUWAHATI: The ULFA’s latest targets are Hindi films, songs and CDs, which the outfit claims are part of a “systematic design of Indian occupational forces” to ruin and wipe out the Assamese identity. A campaign against them was announced in the latest issue of the English version of its monthly mouthpiece Freedom. It calls upon the Assamese people to resist “Hindi-isation” of Assamese culture.”

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