Ulfa mortar terror turns out to be a 20-yr-old girl

‘‘Dwipamani’s is an interesting case,’’ said Deka, pointing out that she was a victim of social ostracisation and trauma which made a militant out of her. She had lost her father when she was an infant and had been subjected to a boycott by people in Nalbari, a hotbed of ULFA militancy in Assam.

Although a very bright student, having passed matriculation and higher secondary with distinction, Dwipamani was deprived of any support from her family and friends, added Khagen Sharma, IGP (Special Branch), who played a major role in convincing her to give up her underground life.

She had joined ULFA in 1998, Dwipamani said, adding how the top leaders of the militant outfit had sent her as a member of a special squad for training in mortar firing to Bangladesh. She received her training at an unknown location three hours drive from Dhaka in what looked like an official firing range of a security agency.

Having completed her training, she was despatched to Guwahati and was told to lead a normal life to deflect any suspicion even as she carried out the attacks, she said. She, in fact, purchased a plot and constructed a house on the outskirts of Guwahati.

‘‘Unlike the other ULFA cadre, she travelled by public transport and did not carry any cellphone or call up the leadership from Guwahati after she was sent out on these missions,’’ IGP Sharma said.

The IGP said that to carry out the two attacks, one on the Dispur capital complex in October and the other in the busy commercial area of Ambari on Christmas night, Dwipamani travelled with two-inch-long mortars in city buses. ‘‘Her most potent weapon was her complete anonymity and secrecy,’’ Sharma pointed out.

Interestingly, even as the police were checking small vehicles and two-wheelers in the city for militants responsible for the city attacks, Dwipamani started calling up IGP Khagen Sharma on the phone, taunting him for having failed to catch the culprits.

‘‘I used to heap insults on the IGP and sarcastically remark that the police cannot catch ULFA cadres. Gradually, however, Sharma sir started talking me out of the destructive life that I was leading,’’ she told reporters.

‘‘I realised I had been used as a machine by the ULFA leaders like Paresh Barua, Raju Barua, Drishti Rajkhowa and Ram Gogoi,’’ Dwipamani said. Meanwhile, DGP Deka announced that the police would rehabilitate her in a ‘‘non-conventional way’’ by supporting her education and giving whatever other support she required to settle down in life, given her good academic record.