IN an image-rebuilding effort, the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has denied having any links with Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. Denying its link with the foreign agency, the ULFA has said that all these allegations were a part of fabricated campaign launched against the ULFA by the Indian state mechinery.

ULFA's statement came in the wake of severe criticism the organisation was subjected to from the people of Assam, after it announced its support towards the Pakistani army regulars and Afghan mercenaries in the Kargil sector. The organisation even went to the extent of describing those intruders as freedom fighters. Though another insurgent outfit, the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) had expressed its solidarity with the Indian forces, the ULFA was firm on supporting the Pakistani intruders and even supplied them the details of the Army movement in the North-East.

The reason behind ULFA's decision of supporting the Pakistan sponsored mercenaries is that the organisation is now being totally controlled by the Pakistani ISI. The top leaders of the organisation, namely Arvind Rajkhowa, Paresh Barua and Raj Barua, are all playing into the hands of the ISI. According to sources, the children of the top ULFA leadership are now studying in the USA and Canada under ISI protection.

One ULFA rebel recently stated that even though he supported the organisation's demand for sovereignty and independent Assam, he left the organisation after ULFA's complete surrender to the ISI.

He is not the only rebel who is against the nexus between the ULFA and the ISI. Many ULFA members, who left the organisation in recent times, had accused the same. The ULFA tried to hush up the matter by killing some of their members like Anjan Jyoti Gogoi, but the nexus has come out into open, despite the organisation's desperate effort to cover it.

The sources said that the ULFA's web magazine 'Freedom' is being edited by the ISI agents from inside Pakistan. It may be mentioned here that it was in the Freedom that ULFA first supported the Pakistanis in the Kargil conflict. It was from the same website, the ULFA had given a call to boycott Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's latest Assam trip.

The ULFA's nexus with the ISI is not a new revelation. Ever since its inception, the organisation has received all possible help from this foreign intelligence agency. The ISI provided the ULFA cadres the arms training, safe havens, arms and ammunition. Even now, the ISI agents are imparting training to the ULFA cadres in its Bhutan camps.

The security forces are now almost sure that the recent blast at the New Jalpaiguri station was executed by the ULFA under the guidance of the ISI. They are sure about the ISI's involvement in the blast because the target of the blast was the security forces, who were heading for Kargil.

All in all, the decision to support the Pakistan-backed mercenaries has made the ULFA quite unpopular among the Assamese people. By