The Assam police on Thursday arrested at least 10 cadres of the United National Liberation Front, an outlawed insurgent outfit from Manipur, in Guwahati in a special operation.
According to a senior police official, the Manipuri militants had taken shelter in various rented accommodations across the city. The arrested ultras included two self-styled majors and one self-styled lieutenant colonel. The police have recovered a large number of incriminating documents, laptops, cell phones and a few vehicles from the ultras.
The Assam police have been cracking down on militants who have taken refuge in Guwahati to flee their state's police forces.
Earlier, on April 30, the Assam police had arrested the self-styled vice-chairman of the UNLF K S Tomba from his hideout in the city.
The UNLF is the oldest Meitei insurgent group in Manipur and it was formed under the leadership of Areambam Samrendra Singh on November 24, 1964 to achieve 'independence' for the state.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the UNLF focused on recruiting and mobilising its cadres. In the 1990s, it launched an armed struggle for the 'liberation' of Manipur from India. In the same year, it formed an armed wing called the Manipur People's Army.
Soon after its formation, the UNLF had established political contact with the authority of the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and started sending its cadres for military training there in 1969.
The UNLF, along with the other insurgent outfits in the region -- the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland - Khaplang, the United Liberation Front of Assam and the Kuki National Army -- floated the Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front in May 1990 to wage a 'united struggle for the independence of Indo-Burma'.
