Student leader arrested in blast case

Police arrested a former student leader of Gauhati University for allegedly helping Ulfa (Independent) militants to carry out a grenade blast here on May 15.

According to police, Sanjib Talukdar, an M. Phil student now who was the president of Post Graduate Students' Union of Gauhati University in 2016-17, had helped the Ulfa rebels to carry out a recce before carrying out the attack.

At least 12 people, including two SSB jawans, were injured in the grenade blast, which targeted a team of security forces in front of a busy shopping mall.

Police had earlier arrested five suspected cadres of the banned outfit including television actor Jahnabi Saikia, for their alleged involvement in the attack.

Police claimed that Talukdar, who was arrested from his rented house, was in touch with Ulfa (I) top leader Paresh Baruah, who is believed to be taking shelter in an undisclosed location along the Myanmar-China border.

Talukdar was produced in a court here on Tuesday, which remanded him to six-day police custody.

"We hope to get further details from him during an interrogation. Besides we have information about several others who are in touch with Baruah and helping the outfit to carry out the unlawful activities," a police official said.

Ulfa has been carrying out "armed struggle" since 1979 with the demand for a "sovereign Assam".

A faction of the outfit led by chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa is in talks with the Centre and in ceasefire since 2010. But Baruah-led Ulfa (I) is against talks without the demand for sovereignty included in the agenda, a condition rejected several times by the government.