NDFB suffers another blow, founder held

The outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) suffered another major blow when Kolkata Police arrested two of its cadres including founder member Sunil Brahma in the city on Tuesday. Brahma hails from Darrang district in northern Assam, and is a former organising secretary of the outfit and was in-charge of the group’s bases in Garo Hills in west Meghalaya. He was also in-charge of cadres in north Bengal and Sikkim.

While a team of special operations unit (SOU) of Assam Police left for Kolkata today, IGP (Special Branch) said Brahma’s arrest has served another blow to the NDFB. It was in November last year that the NDFB’s general secretary Gobinda Basumatary was arrested from a train at Rangiya railway station near here, while its vice-president Dhiren Boro was arrested in Gangtok on January 1 this year.

The NDFB, which has been primarily operating from its hideouts in Bhutan is now left with only two top leaders at the decision-making level, chairman Ranjan Daimary and publicity secretary B. Erakdao, the IGP said.

The NDFB sidelined following the signing of the new Bodo Accord in March between the government and the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (BLT), has been on a collection spree within the state with police also nabbing several junior cadres. Assam Police sources meanwhile said it had identified the business houses that had acceded to the NDFB’s pressure to pay money and proceedings would be drawn up against them according to provisions of the law.