NEW DELHI: The anti-terror federal probe agency NIA has launched an exercise to analyse the forward and backward linkages to identify supporters and over ground workers (OGWs) of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I) and help the police and other security forces to either arrest them or neutralise them, sources said on Wednesday.
They said that the exercise was to help the law enforcement agencies to detect and nab the Ulfa members and its supporters. “Analysis of forward and backward linkages will help in identifying perpetrators of violence and over ground workers (OGWs) of ULFA (I),” a source said.
The OGWs of militants and terrorist outfits in Jammu & Kashmir or elsewhere across the country have always been handy for perpetrators of violence, as they provide all kinds of support to them including terror logistics, a source said, adding: “They also pose a big challenge for the forces in their counter-terror operations”.
“As far as Assam is concerned, we have started identifying such OGWs or sympathisers of ULFA-I,” the source said, adding that members of several NGOs and civil society organisations in Assam “are also under the radar of the security agencies”.
The source said, “We have inputs that people from different walks of life are helping the ULFA-I. The recovery of several bombs during the Independence Day celebrations in Assam has substantiated our belief in truth.”
It also learnt from the sources that participants during the recently concluded two-day anti-terror conference here also deliberated over the strategy to be adopted by the law enforcement agencies to counter the threat posed by ULFA militants.
Indicating that embedding of NIA teams since the beginning helped the security force in countering several grenade attacks beforehand in November-December last year in Assam, the official said, that sharing of information and technical inputs with Assam Police helped them in getting breakthroughs in several major cases.
As a result of these efforts, the NIA could manage to arrest a member of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) from Assam’s Goalpara district in the recent past.