That the ULFA is a part of the ISI’s designs to destabilise the North-Eastern region where it has developed an elaborate network for smuggling of arms, narcotics, explosives and counterfeit money is an established fact. Anjan Jyoti Gogoi, former assistant general secretary of the ULFA who was killed by the outfit last year, had admitted that the organisation was being aided and abetted by the ISI and other fundamentalist groups such as the ‘Jamat-e-Islami’. He had also alleged that the ULFA top brass had become so absorbed in their bohemian lifestyles funded by these organisations that the outfit had become a slave to them. Further proof of the ULFA’s nexus with the ISI was revealed during Kargil conflict, with the Army’s interception of phone calls being made by the outfit to ISI agents in Pakistan on the movement of troops from the region.

The National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) also launched a tirade against India over Kargil issue. It accused India of initiating war against the people of Kashmir and Pakistan and opined that both India and Pakistan should leave the Kashmiris alone and allow them to decide upon their own destiny. In a press release B. Erakdao, publicity secretary of the outfit, alleged that the war launched by India against Pakistan was a ‘criminal act’ not only against the Kashmiri people but also against the people of the rest of the country. The outfit further alleged that while the Indian Government had been trying to draw the attention of the international community to the torture perpetrated on the captured Indian Army personnel by the Pakistani Armed Forces, it had been indulging in large scale violation of human rights in the North-East region.

The ISI has intensified its efforts to target vital installations in the North-East, with the backing of militant outfits such as the ULFA. The bomb explosion at the New Jalpaiguri station in North Bengal on June 22, in which three Army personnel bound for Kargil were among the nine killed, is a part of the ISI’s game-plan to sabotage the war effort as also fulfil its subversive role in the region.

As the Kargil conflict revealed the true nature of the ISI designs, there is a growing sense of anxiety among the people in the region. Already, they may be sitting on a time bomb with the rapid growth of Pakistani backed organisations on the one hand and the steady influx of Bangladeshis in the region on the other. The question is whether the ULFA and other such organisations are now aiding the ISI to turn the North-East into another killing field.