Ulfa-I commander killed in encounter, ‘high profile’ abduction foiled, says Assam police

GUWAHATI: A commander of Ulfa-independent, a banned militant group, was killed in an encounter with police in western Assam’s Bongaigaon district on the wee hours of Thursday, police said.

Based on intelligence inputs that Dwipen Saud, who was newly appointed as the commander of Ulfa-I’s western command and was planning some “high profile” abduction, police confronted him at Besimari under Manikpur police station.

He was killed in the gunbattle that followed while his gunman Padum Rai was arrested with a weapon. Police recovered another weapon and a grenade from the encounter site.

Saud was recently appointed as commander of the outfit’s western command after Drishti Rajkhowa, a senior and dreaded militant leader surrendered before security forces last year.

“We had intelligence that indicated that Ulfa Western Command was planning some high profile kidnapping in collaboration with some other anti-India forces which now appears to be foiled,” Director General of Assam Police, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said in a Facebook post on Thursday morning.

“Today’s successful operation is due to high-quality police intelligence input that worked out precisely for ‘on ground’ action,” he further posted.

The encounter comes days after Ulfa-I abducted three workers of ONGC in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar district. Two of them, however, were rescued by security forces following a gunfight in neighbouring Nagaland. But the third victim still remains traceless. Police said he was in Ulfa-I captivity.