Close on the heels of National Investigating Agency (NIA) Director General Sharad Kumar's visit to Assam, the sleuths of the Central investigating agency have arrested three cadres of the anti-talk faction of the NIA, NDFB, from Kohima in neighbouring Nagaland. A statement issued by the Central agency said this on Thursday and added that one of the arrested leaders is the mastermind of the recent attacks in Sonitpur district of the State on December 23 that left 36 people dead, including women and children.
The three arrested leaders included Ajoi Basumatary alias B Buhum (32), Dilip Basumatary alias Baisa alias lambu (40) and Khamrei Basumatary alias Udla (35). "While the recent attack in Sonitpur was under the direction and leadership of Ajoi, Dilip and Khamrei were also dreaded terrorists. Dilip is responsible for coordination activities of NDFB faction in the Reserved Forest areas of Assam along the Indo-Bhutan, Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border and was actively involved in the conspiracy behind the recent killings in Assam. Khamrei is one of the leaders involved in the recent killings in Kokrajhar district. He was also involved in the killings of Baksa district of Assam in May last year," the statement said.
The operation was carried out in association with the Nagaland Police on Wednesday, the statement said adding that it also led to recovery of seven mobile phones and documents that throw substantial light on leadership of NDFB faction in the recent violence. It may be mentioned here that over 30 senior leaders of the outfit had so far been arrested by the security forces in last ten days due to the intensified operations-mostly from areas along the Indo-Bhutan border in Kokrajhar and Chirang districts.
While the operations by the security forces had been on against the NDFB faction, the Assam Government had already handed over four cases of the violence to the NIA and said that more cases would be handed over to the Central agency soon. A team of the NIA had already visited the State.