GUWAHATI, NOV 19: The recent spate of killings targeting Hindi-speaking settlers is a calculated move by the banned ULFA to prove that it is still alive and strong as ever despite a large number of its cadres calling it quits in the past few months. Highly placed sources in the Assam Police told The Indian Express here that this was ascertained from a message sent by ULFA armed wing chief Paresh Barua to his deputy Raju Barua, which was intercepted recently.Barua, according to sources, had sent the message from his Bangladesh hideout to armed wing deputy Raju Barua, who is reportedly holed up in the rebel group's camps in the Bhutan jungles.The top ULFA leader is also understood to have instructed his deputy to carry on selective strikes on the Hindi-speaking population with two intentions in mind. One, that this will help ULFA regain support of the Assamese-speaking masses in view of the fact that the Hindi-speaking trading community is generally regarded as the exploiters of Assam's wealth. And two, because that would actually ring the alarm bells in New Delhi - based on the general perception that Hindi-speaking people are supporters of the BJP.In the past, the ULFA has described the BJP, along with other groups of the Sangh Parivar, as part of an ``Indian expansionist design'' in Assam and the North-East. The rebels have gunned down at least half a dozen RSS and VHP workers in the past, while a Lok Sabha candidate was shot dead during the 1999 general elections.Sources in the police also say that Paresh Barua had specified certain pockets inhabited by Hindi-speaking traders to be made targets, these spreading over different districts of the state from east to west. Accordingly, as the militant cadres carried out five attacks over a period of one month, Paresh Barua also congratulated his deputy for accomplishing the task successfully, the sources, quoting from the intercepted message, added.ULFA has so far carried out as many as five massacres of non-Assamese people this year, taking the toll up to 41. Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, in the meantime, has already said that the police had information that the ULFA would strike in more places, and last Thursday's incident at Bihubor in Sibsagar district is one such incident. What the government does after having such information in hand remains to be seen.
