Friday, October 31, 2008

Assam bomb-blasts and growth of militancy

13 bomb-blasts in 4 districts of Assam killing more than 100 people and injuring more than 500 people during the festive season of Diwali and Eid shocked entire India.
Prima facie it looked like a handiwork of ULFA, a separatist organization in Assam, but eventually needle of suspicion is pointing to Bangladeshi terrorist organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI).
Though ULFA has categorically denied any role in serial bomb-blasts, its Bangladesh connection is well known. Today ULFA is based in Bangladesh.
Had anyone predicted this 25 years back, people would have laughed at him. This organization was established in 1979, that was a turbulent period in History of Assam. AaSU (All Assam Students Union) was agitating against Bengalis. These bengalis were mainly illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Marwari businessmen from West Bengal. Ulfa grew with this agitation. When agitation ended, ULFA took its own stance. Now it wanted separate Assam. As per ULFA, Assam was never a part of India. It started developing links with other secessionist organizations like NSCN. So now the focus of organization changed from anti-Bengali to Anti-India.
Irony was that in 1989 Bangladesh allowed ULFA to establish camps in Bangladesh. The organization established to protect Assamese interests against Bangladeshis is now under asylum of Bangladesh.
Decade of 90 in Bangladesh is marked with the growth of fundamentalist politics. Various Islamic fundamentalists organizations were formed with the help of ISI. And as a larger conspiracy to weaken India, ULFA was given full support from these organizations and ISI.
The next decade saw ULFA turning into a puppet of ISI and therefore has completely lost its base and popularity in Assam.
Though still it can not openly claim responsibility of the bomb-blasts, but definitely this is one organization which provides basic infrastructure on which Bangladeshi terrorist organizations are thieving upon.

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