An Ulfa flag flutters in Tinsukia on Monday. A Telegraph picture

April 7: Ulfa went on a flag-hoisting spree on its raising day today, giving its trademark bloodletting a go-by.

The outfit’s activists and supporters began the operation last night and carried it out till the wee hours of today in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Deputy inspector-general of police (Eastern Range) L.R. Bisnoi confirmed that the outfit had hoisted flags.

Police said the flags were raised in over a hundred villages and in several towns in Assam. In Arunachal Pradesh, they were unfurled in the Chowkham area of Lohit district.

However, they were brought down quickly by the police.

Security agencies dismissed the entire exercise as a “gimmick” aimed at cheap publicity. They said violence was still very much on the outfit’s agenda.

Their claim was corroborated when a bomb tied to a bicycle was recovered from the parking lot of the Namrup railway station in Dibrugarh district at 4.40am. It possibly targeted the Calcutta-bound Kamrup Express and was later defused by the army.

The bomb was found on the basis of information provided by three Ulfa linkmen — Putul Gogoi, Nabajyoti Gogoi and Jatin Gogoi — who were arrested from Borhat in Sivasagar district this morning. There was also an encounter between Ulfa rebels and the police in Dibrugarh district this morning.

The outfit was formed on this day in 1979 at Rang Ghar in Sivasagar with an aim to liberate Assam from the “colonial Indian Occupational Forces”.

Its chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, today appealed to all ethnic groups and community to unitedly fight for a “sovereign Assam”.

He also decried the Asam Sahitya Sabha’s recent suggestion that photo-identity cards should be issued to every person residing in Assam to address the problem of influx from neighbouring Bangladesh.

Rajkhowa said the main purpose of the suggestion was to corner the outfit as none of its cadres fighting for a “sovereign Assam” would opt for such card.