“We may be Hindi-speaking. But we belong to Assam. Many of us have lost our links with the villages our forefathers came from more than a hundred years ago,” says Ramnivesh Yadav, a shopkeeper at Tinsukia, Assam’s ‘mini-Bihar’.

Yadav’s great grandfather came to Assam in the1860s to work in the neighbouring coalmines at Makum. There are thousands like him in Tinsukia in Dibrugarh district where the ULFA struck on January 5. “We belong to Assam, it is our only home,” says Bindeswar Prasad, another shopkeeper.

Tinsukia, in fact, is represented in the state assembly by Rajendra Prasad Singh whose grandfather migrated to Assam 75 years ago and set up a small grocery shop near a tea garden. “My grandfather came from Chapra, but today I am proud to introduce myself as an Assamese,” says the two-time MLA in fluent Assamese.

Till the arrival of the Bangladeshi migrant, migrants from Bihar ran — and still do — the show in many parts of the state. They run small shops in remote villages, catch fish on the Brahmaputra, rear cattle on the numerous chaporis (winter river islands) on the Brahmaputra, supply milk, work as barbers and washermen, ply rickshaws. And then there is the seasonal labourer who comes around Dussehra to work in the brick kilns till early March.

The average Assamese villager however does not consider him to be an alien. He has become an inseparable part of the community. But the ULFA obviously thinks otherwise. The ULFA may be an offshoot of the AASU’s six-year long movement to oust Bangladeshi infiltrators in 1979-85, but now it appears to have trained its guns on the migrants from Bihar. In the December 15 issue of its newsletter Freedom, the ULFA outlined its “mission”: “The ULFA is determined to uproot those illegal migrants who have threatened Assam’s existence, created a chaotic situation in its social formation and occupied the economic and political sphere by making the indigenous people homeless. All those who illegally migrated from the Indian subcontinent must be identified and expelled.

(But) ULFA must clarify that Indian rulers are the main illegal foreigners. In Assam, the principal illegal occupational force is the Indian Army. Those who illegally trespassed from Bangladesh and Nepal must be (also) identified and driven away. But before that, the Indian occupational forces must be expelled. With their notorious tricks to carry on business in Assam, the places which they have occupied and converted into mini-Bihar, mini-Rajasthan and mini-Kolkata, must be evicted.”

People from Bihar form the largest migrant group, which makes them first on the ULFA’s hitlist. About 40 per cent of the voters in Tinsukia assembly segment are Hindi-speaking. “People from Bihar and eastern UP came here in the British days to work in the steamer company, coalfields, plywood mills and the oil industry. A large number of them have intermingled and intermarried with the local people and are today inseparable from the Assamese community,” says MLA Singh.

A large number of residents who are not seasonal migrants, also rear cattle in the chars and chaporis (temporary islands) on the Brahmaputra.

“These people are the most vulnerable because you cannot reach them easily. One has to cross several river channels to reach them,” says AK Absar Hazarika, deputy commissioner of Tinsukia.

While most places where the migrants were attacked on January 5 were remote, Longsowal in fact is on NH 37, about 16 km from Tinsukia town and six km short of Doomdooma. ‘’If we are unsafe, imagine what would be the state of our people who live in remote chaporis on the Brahmaputra,’’ points out Radheyshyam Prasad, another shopkeeper.

THE migrants are now leaving the brick kilns of Tinsukia. What’s left behind is fear. “We do not want to stay here any longer. There is news of killing from all over. We are scared. Our owners are also worried,” says Shankar Rai, a 60-year-old labourer who had come from his village in Gopalganj in Bihar.

His four sons are ready to leave as well. Nearly 155 labourers from a brick kiln sit huddled in a primary school on the National Highway, just waiting to catch the next train out of Assam.

There are more than 3,000 workers from Bihar in the 20-odd brick kilns in Tinsukia. “They were soft targets because they work in areas that are remote,” says RN Mathur, who took over as the Assam Police DG on January 1.

But the fear is no longer limited to the kilns and the river islands. “When the ULFA wants to strike, the easiest target is the ordinary, innocent, helpless migrant from Bihar, be it in the busy Fancy Bazaar locality of Guwahati or the remote chapori on the Brahmaputra in Tinsukia,” says Khagen Sharma, IGP (Special Branch) in the Assam Police.

IT’S an old story. Every time Assam gets into election mode, political parties discreetly woo the ULFA. And once an election is over, predictably, the parties (Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Congress especially) turn around and accuse each other of using the ULFA to come to power. This, interspersed with a now-on-now-off peace process.

“The ULFA and political parties definitely have a symbiotic relationship,” says Noni Gopal Mahanta, professor of peace, conflict and human rights studies in the department of political science, Gauhati University. “The ULFA plays the most dominating role not just in the state’s politics, but also in the state’s economy,” points out Mahanta, who researched the ULFA for his PhD. “The ULFA determines to a great extent which party or combination should come to power. They want that particular combination to be in power, which subsequently goes soft on them. And when Prafulla Kumar Mahanta decided to get tough in 1998, it was the ULFA which decided he should go.”

Take the two assembly elections of 1996 and 2001. The Congress government of Hiteswar Saikia went tough on the rebels, and the ULFA almost openly appealed for the ouster of the party in 1996. But as Prafulla Mahanta decided to get tough, the result was an attack on his convoy in Guwahati. A massive crackdown that the regional party’s government carried out on the militants continues to hound it; the AGP is still in the ULFA’s bad books. There were numerous attacks on candidates and supporters of the AGP and its allies including the BJP, and the Congress was back in power. That was 2001.

“The Congress cannot crack down on the ULFA today because it had captured power in 2001 with the support of the militants,” says former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. “Tarun Gogoi is riding on a tiger, and cannot get down from it now,” he adds, recalling how armed rebels threatened traditional non-Congress voters in 2001.

“That the Congress used the ULFA in the 2006 elections is now out in the open. While the AGP and other opposition parties accuse the Congress of using the ULFA for its advantage, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa has himself said that the Congress initiated the talks process just to get through the assembly elections,” points out Dilip Patgiri, advisor of Asom Jatiyabadi Yuva-Chatra Parishad (AJYCP). Patgiri is also a member of the ULFA-nominated People’s Consultative Group.

POLITICS apart, it is also regional disparity and underdevelopment in the state that has created an environment on which the ULFA has flourished. “It is a fact that a sizeable section of people continue to side with the ULFA. And there are several reasons for this. The most important is lack of development. Just go to Tinsukia, the most important industrial district of the state. Three national highways crisscross the small district. There are so many industries - coal, petroleum, plywood, and tea. But when it comes to providing basic facilities to the people, it is the worst,” says Noni Gopal Mahanta. Tinsukia deputy commissioner AK Absar Hazarika agrees. “It is a fact that certain basic amenities have not reached the common people.”

Take for instance this village called Gosaigaon, located on the eastern end of Assam near the border, separated from Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh by the Dirak river. Although it’s only two kilometres off NH-52, development hasn’t reached the village yet. The government had sanctioned Rs 1 lakh for a road four years ago to the village but what connects Gosaigaon with the rest of the world is a dirt track built by the villagers. The nearest primary school is five kilometres away, organised by villagers themselves with no assistance, not even free textbooks, forthcoming from the government. The first tubewell for safe drinking water came during VIP visits in February last year following the death of a villager in army custody. And the mothers do not want to marry off their daughters to the local boys because they do not have any source of income.

“Gosaigaon is only one example of hundreds of villages in Assam. And these are breeding grounds for militancy. We did a study in Nalbari and the boys said they wanted to join the ULFA because there was nothing else to do,” points out Noni Gopal Mahanta.

“But there are external factors as well,” says DN Chakravarty, editor of Dainik Asam, the oldest Assamese daily. “Terrorism is a global phenomenon and the ULFA is part of this global terror network headed by the Islamic forces. And so deeply is ULFA into Islamic terrorism that it cannot dare to touch a single Bangladeshi migrant in Assam,” adds Chakravarty who has received several warnings from Paresh Barua for voicing his opinion.

The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), from whose six-year long movement against the Bangladeshi influx the ULFA had emerged in the late 1970s, too points at this divergence. “The ULFA is attacking and driving away the Bihari and other Hindi-speaking people so that their space can be taken by Bangladeshi infiltrators,” says AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya.

Interestingly, it was the AASU’s protest against recruitment of a large number of Biharis in the Northeast Frontier Railways that had actually sparked off the 2003 violence against the Biharis. In retrospect, it is seen that while the AASU protested recruitment of candidates from Bihar in the railways in the region, the ULFA went one step further to attack and oust the domiciled Biharis in Upper Assam.

That the ULFA is a beneficiary of the massive central funds that flow into the region is also suspected. The Northeast, for instance, has received about Rs 45,000 crore under various central schemes and programmes in the past ten years. Only recently, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh raised doubts over misuse of central funds in Assam and the Northeast, and suggested a monitoring mechanism.

BEHIND THE TERROR A NETWORK AND MANY ALIASES

Paresh Barua, commander-in-chief

Before he joined the ULFA, he was known more for his football skills. In fact in the village that he comes from - Jerai Chakalibhariya under Chabua police station in Dibrugarh district, every family has at least one football player of repute. Paresh played for the district, and for the Dibrugarh University, as also for Assam, before becoming the most dependable full-back of the Dibrugarh Railway team. Today the 1957-born Barua has changed his role, from the full-back of a football team to the leader of the armed wing of the ULFA.

Has collected many names over the years: Paban Barua, Pradip Barua and also Nur-uz-Zaman - the last on his Pakistani passport.

ANUP CHETIA, general secretary

Real name Golap Barua, also known as Sunil Barua, Bhaijan or Ahmed. The last two come handy since like Paresh, he now lives in Bangladesh. He comes from the same village as Paresh - their families are neighbours in fact. Was also closely associated with sports, but more as an organiser and team manager. “Chetia travels on a forged passport and identity card, lives on money obtained from extortion or robbery, and can handle all kinds of weapons,” says the Assam Police website. Chetia, general secretary of the ULFA, was first arrested in Assam in March 1991, but was released by then chief minister Hiteswar Saikia. He was later arrested in Dhaka in December 1997. Jail term over, he’s believed to be still in Bangladesh.

Arabinda Rajkhowa, chairman

Real name Rajiv Rajkonwar. This ULFA chairman is the son of a freedom fighter. Born in 1956, Rajkhowa comes from Ujani Konwargaon under Simaluguri in Sivasagar district, and was a schoolteacher when he, along with Paresh Barua, late Buddheswar Gogoi, Bhimkanta Buragohain and others first floated the ULFA in April 1979.

An avid reader, fluent in nearly half a dozen languages, the soft-spoken Rajkonwar is also vice-president of the Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front. According to the police dossier, as chairman of the permanent standing council of the ULFA, it is he who orders and approves killings, kidnappings, extortion, trans-border gun-running and other activities by ULFA and like minded organisations in Assam and outside.

Bhimkanta Buragohain, political advisor

Better known as Mama. The 76-year-old veteran sportsperson is one of the founders of ULFA. Buragohain is not just political advisor to the ULFA but also its ideologue. An avid reader, his favourite subject is history. Comes from Kakopathar, the area in Tinsukia district, which is considered the most important stronghold of the ULFA even today. Was captured by the Bhutanese forces from the ULFA hideouts during Operation All Clear in December 2003. A painter and a sculptor, his artistic skills are keeping him busy in the Guwahati central jail where he has been lodged since his arrest.

MITHINGA DAIMARY, publicity secretary

Daimary is currently lodged in the Guwahati Central Jail after being captured by the Royal Bhutanese Army in December 2003. Megon Kachari is the name under which he writes poetry - he has three collections to his name. An English translation of some of his poems was released at the World Book Fair in Frankfurt last year.

Comes from Barama village in Nalbari, his entire family - mother, elder brother, sister, pregnant sister-in-law - were killed by unidentified armed men in 2000 (now said to be part of “secret killings” allegedly carried out by the then AGP government).