Kokrajhar: Probe on if NDFB(S) or jihadis behind it

While the Assam government and the state police allude to the involvement of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction) in Friday’s terror attack in a Kokrajhar market that left 14 persons dead and around 20 others injured, it has left a few questions unanswered on the modus operandi and the motive.

Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal told this newspaper: “The mobile details, source-based information etc point to the involvement of the NDFB(S) though investigations are still on to firmly conclude anything.”

Said Assam DGP Mukesh Sahay: “We may undertake DNA testing to determine the identity of the killed person, but investigations are on and we are considering every aspect, though till now all the signs indicate a NDFB(S) connection.”

While the NDFB(S) has denied its role in the incident, its denial hasn’t been given much value. The Paresh Barua faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa), which has very close ties with the NDFB(S), has also condemned the incident.

Now the questions: NDFB cadres are not known to engage in shootouts in crowded marketplaces which may cause casualties among Bodos too. Their signature style usually is targeted killings or bombings— unless the outfit sought to portray an ISIS-style attack in order to rake up communal passions.

Of late, due to sustained operations by the Army and the security forces, the NDFB (Songbijit) has been on the backfoot, which was further compounded by its lack of cadres. “In such a condition, why would the outfit decide to sacrifice a few of their hardcore cadres in an attack fraught with too many risks,” asked a senior official who is familiar with the Bodo militants’ mode of operation.

Also, the belongings recovered among other possessions included documents, a lot of clothes, plates, which is not something that trained militants carry when they are about to undertake an operation. “In fact, the idea is to travel as light as possible for obvious reasons,” the official said.

A security official told this newspaper that there were intelligence inputs that radical jihadists were planning an attack in Bodo-dominated western Assam, a scene of large-scale ethnic warfare between Bodo tribals and Bengali-speaking Muslims of alleged Bangladeshi origin in 2012 that had left around 90 dead and displaced lakhs.

Just after the formation of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in 2014, its chief Ayman al Zawahiri had mentioned Myanmar, Bangladesh and Assam as some key areas of operation of the new group headed by Asim Umar. Again, laying claim to the Karachi dockyard attack in September 2014, AQIS had in a statement said: “We shall never forget your (India) oppression of our brothers in Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam.”

Another matter that the Assam Police is specially seized of is that in India, after Jammu and Kashmir, Assam is the state with the second-highest ISIS following on the social media. Assam is also home to several sleeper cells of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and over 30 people have been arrested on the charges of being JMB activists and linkmen, most of them having been picked up from western Assam.