Ulfa fine, says surrenderee

Niren Sarma. A Telegraph picture

Dinjan (Dibrugarh), Sept. 15: A senior Ulfa leader today brushed aside claims by security forces that the outfit’s organisational structure in Upper Assam had been virtually smashed, insisting instead that it was working fine.

Self-styled sergeant major Niren Sarma alias Tarun Gogoi, who formally surrendered before the army at Dinjan today, said the Ulfa’s organisational network was quite intact and functional and dismantling it totally would be a Herculean, if not an impossible task.

Sarma, who joined the outfit in 1987, is from the Borhat area in Upper Assam’s Sivasagar district. He deposited an AK-56 rifle, a magazine, some ammunition and a hand grenade with the army.

Though Sarma had his mandatory arms training in Bhutan in 1997, his basic responsibility was to maintain and strengthen the organisational network of the outfit in Sivasagar district. “Though I am not in a position to divulge the exact number of cadres right now, it is beyond 400. They are fresh and currently undergoing training in Myanmar at the bases jointly run by Ulfa and the NSCN(K),” Sarma said when asked about the dwindling strength of the outfit in Upper Assam.

Sarma added that each and every outfit engaged in guerrilla warfare has its own transition period, and Ulfa, too, is going through a critical phase today. “It will be foolish to say that the backbone of the outfit had been broken by the security forces with the killings, surrender or ceasefire. Whatever it is, the organisational structure of Ulfa is the people of Assam and no force in the world can demolish it,” Sarma, who is suffering from an eye ailment, said.

Sarma’s wife, self-styled second lieutenant Devika Gohain, was arrested by the security forces from Titlagarh in Sivasagar district on September 3. After her arrest, Devika, who was a senior in Ulfa’s organisational hierarchy, had told her interrogators that around 500 fresh and new cadres were being trained in the camps in Myanmar.

Asked why he surrendered if he was painting such a rosy picture of Ulfa, Sarma said he did so because he was not keeping well. He had even recovered from a bout of jaundice. But sources said the arrest of his wife could have led to his decision to surrender.

Earlier, the GOC of the Dinjan-based 2 Mountain Division Maj. Gen. B.S. Sachar, claimed that the backbone of the outfit in Sivasagar district had been broken today with the surrender of Sarma and prior to that, the arrest of his wife Devika.

“Through the co-ordinated efforts of the army and other security forces and intelligence agencies, we have been able to dismantle all the bastions of Ulfa in Upper Assam. We will continue with our operations with more intensity and zeal, so that the roots of insurgency can be uprooted from the region,” the general said.

Gen. Sachar also congratulated all the security forces and intelligence agencies for its co-operation against militancy in Assam because of which around 200 cadres of various outfit had surrendered in Upper Assam during the past year.

The surrender ceremony was attended by senior army officers, additional SP (security) of Tinsukia, H.K. Nath, and SDPO of Charaideo subdivision, Jayanta Sarathi Bora, among others.