The Maoist movement in Assam has entered into its second phase with formation of its armed wing.
Disclosing that the outfit has extended its cadre strength to more than 100, authoritative security sources told this newspaper that weapons of AK series, carbines, rifles, pistols and grenade launchers have been added to the armoury of the Maoist armed wing in Assam.
Informing that the first military commander of Maoist, Paul Gogoi, alias Bogoli, was eliminated in an encounter with security forces in October last year near Sadia in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district, security sources said that the encounter was initially believed to be an attempt of robbery by some miscreants but subsequently it was found to be a Maoist operation to snatch weapons from security forces.
Pointing out that some of the arms were snatched from security forces in three separate incidents of arms snatch in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, security sources said that outfit was also collecting fund from Nepali and Bihari cattle farmers of Upper Assam but on a very low scale. Indicating that the outfit was focusing on collecting small contributions, security sources said that security agencies are also worried about frequent visit of human rights activists like Gautam Navlakha of the Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights and many others to Arunachal Pradesh where Maoists are making their presence felt by motivating Arunachali villagers against constructions of big dams.
Security sources said that Maoist modules were found to have directly been involved into the recent border conflict between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in Upper Assam. Apart from arms training by the NSCN(I-M) to Maoist cadres in Manipur, security sources said that two central committee members and veteran Maoist leaders Sunil and Deepak Roy visited Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Security sources, which regretted that out of 28 Maoists rebels who were caught by security forces since 2006 in Assam, 17, including Aditya Bora, have jumped bail, claimed that the outfit was identifying the areas where development index is very low to spread its network.