Two senior United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) leaders have admitted to the police interrogators that the outlawed outfit has set up bases in China.
This is the first time the ULFA, which is fighting to separate Assam from India, has accepted setting up bases in China.
ULFA ‘foreign secretary’ Sasha Choudhury and ‘finance secretary’ Chitraban Hazarika, now in police custody since November 6, told interrogators that apart from Bangladesh they have bases in China and other foreign nations.
"Crores of rupees have been extorted from (Assam) and transferred to (ULFA) leaders in Bangladesh, China and other countries where they have established hideouts," the Special Operations Unit (SOU) of Assam Police quoted the two leaders as saying.
The interrogation testimony was submitted to the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Guwahati on Tuesday.
"Several foreign agencies and NGOs provided logistic assistance to the ULFA leaders in foreign countries. They are trying to muster support from China, Bangladesh and other foreign countries for ULFA," the report quoted the arrested men as saying.
According to the officials, the two ULFA leaders were taken into custody by the Border Security Force (BSF) near Gokul Nagar in Tripura on November 5 while trying to creep into India. The two of them, who are based in Dhaka, denied this account.
There have been reports in a section of the media that the two were arrested in Bangladesh and handed them over to the Indian authorities on November 2.
The two men also disclosed that ULFA was planning to acquire a large shipment of arms and explosives from Pakistan and China for ‘use against the Government of India’, according to the interrogation report.
The ULFA is known to have close ties with the Pakistani intelligence. It is also known to have bases in Bangladesh where its top leaders have lived for a long time.
