The special cell of the Delhi police, with the arrest of two Northeast-based insurgents of the People Liberation Army (PLA), has reportedly unearthed a move to form a new outfit — to be called the “Strong United Front” — in collaboration with J&K-based militant outfits.
Central intelligence agencies have been pointing to the possibility of Northeast-based militant organisations having “close links” with J&K militant outfits.
Acting on a tip-off, the police arrested suspected insurgents N. Dilip Singh (51) and Arun Kumar Singh Salam (36) from a hotel in Delhi’s Pahar-ganj area on October 1. The police has recovered several documents from the two, who were in Delhi to provide logistics, training, weapons and communications to other insurgents.
The outlawed PLA aims to liberate Manipur through an armed struggle and its ideologues are in close contact with the Maoists to form a “strategic united front” against their “common enemy — the Indian government”, sources said. The probe revealed that the PLA also provided logistics, training, weapons and communication system to the CPI (Maoist) and had earlier trained their cadre in the jungles of Jharkhand and Orissa in 2009 and 2010 besides planning to conduct two more training camps for the Maoists next year.
Special commissioner (special cell) P.N. Aggrawal said, “After the arrest of Dilip Singh and Arun Kumar Singh Salam, the Manipur police was informed about the details of other members based in Imphal. The Manipur police has arrested three more persons in Imphal.” The police found that Singh was the head of the PLA’s “external affairs” and Salam was his deputy. The police has seized a laptop which “clearly showed” that the PLA and Maoists had been instructed by their superiors to discuss modalities.