Smita Mishra
bdnews24.com Correspondent
Guwahati, Jan 19 (bdnews24.com) -- A "commander" of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), fighting for the freedom of the Indian state of Assam, has admitted that his group attacked a rally of the Awami League on August 21 2004, killing several party leaders, a senior police officer said.
ULFA's self styled Pallav Saikia, arrested in the northeast Indian city of Shillong on December 14 last year, has told the Assam police special branch and India's central intelligence bureau during interrogations that 11 ULFA fighters led by him lobbed grenades and fired assault rifles into the Awami League rally.
Many AL supporters and leaders, including the chief of the Mahila League Ivy Rahman, were killed in the attack.
Assam police special branch chief Khagen Sarmah told bdnews24.com that Pallav confessed they attacked the Awami League rally at the "explicit instruction" of the ULFA military wing chief Paresh Barua.
"Some Bangladesh intelligence officials helped us plan the assault and even gave us the vehicles for the assault that morning, but I don't know these Bangladeshis."
"They started interacting with us after Paresh Barua briefed me on the mission on July 26 in a safe house in Gulshan in Dhaka," Pallav was quoted as saying during questioning.
Khagen Sarmah said Pallav Saikia named everyone in the group who accompanied him on the assault.
"Rubul Ali was my second-in-command in that assault," Pallav is reported to have told his interrogators.
Of the eleven, six are still alive and operating for the ULFA but Rubul is dead, killed in an encounter with the Indian army in May last year.
Pallav is believed to be close to ULFA military wing chief Paresh Barua and led a special unit of the group involved in high profile assassinations and acts of sabotage.
Intelligence bureau officials say they can place Pallav for questioning by any Bangladeshi team, but they say they will sit in during the questioning so that there is "no confusion".
The Interpol was also welcome to question him, they said.
The four-party coalition government tried to calm public anger by bringing in the Interpol and FBI agents. The government also opened a judicial probe into the carnage, but its alleged half-baked efforts failed to solve the mystery.
Assam security analyst Jaideep Saikia, who has edited a book on Bangladesh last year, says: "We have always suspected that the ULFA was given shelter by the BNP regime despite furious Indian protests because it wanted to use them against the political opposition particularly the Awami League."
But the ULFA has denied the allegations.
"Pallav Saikia is either saying all this nonsense under pressure or he has been bought over and forced to say all this. We don't meddle in the politics of any other country, we are just fighting to liberate Assam from Indian colonial control," said ULFA spokesperson Rubi Bhuiyan.
Bhuiyan said the ULFA has been targeted for some "aggressive psychological operations" and Pallav's purported revelations were all fabricated for that.
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