Guwahati, December 02 2009: Chairman of outlawed ULFA Arabinda Rajkhowa has been detained in Bangladesh and efforts were on to get him deported to India, intelligence sources said today.

53-year-old Rajkhowa was picked up in Dhaka on Monday and was likely to be handed over to the Indian authorities along the Indo-Bangla border either in Tripura or in Assam soon, they said.

The detention was also confirmed by sources in the Union Home Ministry but they refused to elaborate any further.

The ULFA Chairman has reportedly been in favour of talks with the Central government.

Two other top ULFA leaders, self-styled Finance Secretary Chitrabon Hazarika and Foreign Secretary Sasha Choudhury had been arrested in Bangladesh in November last and handed over to Assam police in whose custody they are lodged at present.

The arrests assume significance in view of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India slated later this month and also the signing of three proposed agreements, including the extradition treaty and another on combating international terrorism.

With Rajkhowa's detention, ULFA is now left with only one leader - commander-in-chief Paresh Barua - who is yet to be nabbed.

Unlike Rajkhowa, Barua has been against talks with the Indian government except on the issue of sovereignty.

Rajkhowa, whose real name is Rajib Rajkonwar, is among four people who founded the separatist outfit on April 7, 1979.The detained ULFA Chairman is the son of a freedom fighter Umakanta Rajknowar, who died three years ago.

Accused in several cases, including that of waging war against India, Rajkowa has an Interpol Red Corner notice against him.

He has been out of India since 1992 and is said to have lived in places including Myanmar and Bhutan.

Shillong: A hardcore Ulfa militant on Tuesday revealed that at least three camps of the banned outfit, housing over 100 rebels, are still active in Myanmar.

Not only that, they have close nexus with the NSCN (K) as well, he said.

Gobin Ojha @ Kiran Jyoti Gogoi, who has been one of the key inmates in the camps having several rebels under his command, surrendered at the BSF's Assam-Meghalaya Frontier headquarters here along with a Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF) militant, Arun Terong.

The duo, involved in extortion, bomb blasts, kidnapping and killings, handed over two pistols and a few rounds of ammunition before BSF IG Prithvi Raj on the occasion of the force's (Assam & Meghalaya Frontier) 45th Rising Day.

The Ulfa militant later told newspersons that about 110 rebels, including some women, belonging to the outfit's 28th battalion were living in a pathetic condition at the three camps in the jungles of Myanmar.

"They don't get proper food and medicines.

Life's very difficult there," Gobin said.

"Bijoy Das, the commander of Ulfa's 28th battalion, was also operating from one of those camps," he added.

"The Khaplang faction of NSCN, too, has camps in the area and both the groups had a close nexus," said Gobin, a native of Assam's Sivasagar district who had joined Ulfa in 2005 .

Incidentally, the Ulfa's 28th battalion had owned up to the recent attack on a train in Assam's Golaghat district.

Sixteen wagons of the train, carrying high-speed diesel from Numaligarh Oil Refinery to Panki in Uttar Pradesh, were destroyed in the blast.

On the other hand, Terong, the KLNLF militant, was the bodyguard of the outfit's general secretary and was involved in two bomb blasts at the Diphu railway station and another in front of a temple, also in Diphu, Karbi Anglong, in November, 2007 .

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