Army lays siege; cuts off supply lines from 42 forest villages to the park The PCG has threatened to call off the peace initiative if the Centre did not restrain the security forces
GUWAHATI: Twenty militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom are hiding in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park in the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts of Assam for the last three weeks. The Army has laid siege to the area.Security agencies said senior leaders of the ULFA's 28th battalion were among the rebels holed up in the jungle. The troops, drawn from the 181 and 82 Mountain Brigades under 2 Mountain Division, built up a cordon around the 765-sq km park with a core area of 340 sq km and cut off supply lines from 42 forest villages. However, they denied the outfit's claim that 12 of its militants were killed and their bodies thrown into a river during the operations.
A delegation of the People's Consultative Group (PCG), formed by the ULFA, left for Dibru-Saikhowa on Tuesday for a first hand assessment of the ground situation in the wake of allegations of atrocities on villagers and killing of its cadres.The PCG has threatened to call off the peace initiative if the Centre did not restrain the security forces from carrying out operations against the militant outfit. Dilip Patgiri, a member of the delegation, told The Hindu that the Army seemed to have scaled down its operations following the group's intervention.
The PCG said the ULFA had stopped operations since the formation of the group. Hence, the Centre should immediately restrain the security forces in reciprocation.MSN Premium gives you PC protection, junk-mail filters, advanced communication tools and great software like MSN Encarta® Premium. Click here for a FREE trial!
_______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
