Tinsukia (Assam), June 21: A scribe of a popular local daily was arrested from upper Assam’s Tinsukia for allegedly selling sim cards to the ULFA and for being entrusted to prepare the groundwork for setting up a new frontal organisation.
District Superintendent of Police Prasanta Kumar Bhuyan told reporters that Robin Dhekial Phukan, correspondent of ‘Asomiya Pratidin’, the largest circulated regional daily of Assam, was arrested in the early hours from Kakopathar area regarded as an ULFA stronghold.
The SP said that the journalist had admitted to selling 23 BSNL mobile sim cards at the rate of Rs 2500 each to ULFA’s commander, strikeforce 28 battalion, Jiten Dutta, responsible for the massacre of hindi-speaking people in upper Assam.
Phukan also admitted that he had attended the ULFA raising day on April seven which the outfit celebrated at Manabhum reserve forest where he met top ULFA leaders Ujjal Gohain, Bijoy Chinese, Pranjal Saikia and Dibakar Moran.
The scribe told interrogators that the ULFA had lost faith in the now disbanded peoples consultative group and the Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS) and asked him to prepare the groundwork to form a new frontal organisation called ‘Adhikar Suraksha Parishad’.
A video showing Phukan, admitting his links with the ULFA and working for the outfit on various occasions was screened for the media.
Phukan said Jiten Dutta had given him the responsibility of forming the frontal unit and gain local support.
He claimed that Dutta and several other ULFA leaders whom he met had expressed loss of faith with the PCG and mass and underlined the need to form a new organisation which could function overground at the behest of ULFA.
The journalist also said he was assigned the job of bringing at least two members of each family to stage the road blockade at Doomdooma-Rupai area in may following the killing of Dimbesar Moran by the army whom the ULFA claimed to be an innocent villager.
Bhuyan said the scribe will be interrogated further as he had “revealed certain sensational factsâ€.
