A colourful display at the closing ceremony of the National Games. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Feb. 18: The National Games may have ended without Ulfa playing spoilsport, but the government’s worries are far from over.

The top brass of the security establishment is scheduled to meet tomorrow to draft a strategy to stop the outlawed militant group from resuming its offensive against Hindi-speaking people in Assam. Ulfa issued the threat two days ago, citing the government’s “failure” to reciprocate its gesture of calling off the Games boycott as the reason.

Ulfa decided not to disrupt the Games after an appeal by sportspersons less than a week before the event began.

A senior official said there was no question of the government letting its guard down after seeing off the Games without a security hitch. “In fact, tomorrow’s meeting is meant to discuss strategies to meet the fresh challenges thrown at us by Ulfa.”

The three-tier Unified Command for counter-insurgency operations will fine-tune the strategy drafted by the government at a later date.

A cabinet meeting is also on the cards to discuss the possibility of reviving the peace process with Ulfa. “There has been pressure from within and without on the government to make yet another attempt to get Ulfa to the negotiating table. Now that the Games are over, the government is likely to take a fresh look at the issue,” the official said.

Ulfa’s offensive against Hindi-speaking people last month — about 70 people were killed — had provoked Dispur into declaring “a fight to the finish”. The government, however, kept insisting that its door would always be open for talks.

“Such a strategy does not pay dividends. It is either this or that. You cannot go on fighting and simultaneously talk of a dialogue,” an army officer said.

The focus of operations against Ulfa is now seemingly on the militant group’s network of supporters in the villages and towns. As many as 20 such Ulfa “sympathisers”, including a doctor, have been arrested in Tinsukia district in the past couple of weeks.

“We arrested one Dr Biswajeet Mukherjee in Makum after he treated an Ulfa militant (Likhon Moran) who had been critically wounded in an encounter with the army. The militant died later,” Tinsukia superintendent of police Prasanta Bhuyan said. The doctor claimed to have been forced to visit a hideout to treat the militant. He is out on bail.

Another person, Abhijit Rai, was arrested for supplying SIM cards and recharge coupons of various mobile service providers to Ulfa militants. Rai, 40, deals in tea.

A senior leader of Ulfa’s combat wing, the 28th Battalion, telephoned a section of the media on Friday and accused both Delhi and Dispur of “not responding positively” to his outfit’s “goodwill gesture” of letting the Games be held peacefully.

“They have continued their operations, which has once again prompted us to take to the path of violence. It seems that Delhi and Dispur have interpreted our latest stand on the National Games as one of weakness. If the Indian occupational forces think that they can finish off Ulfa with their military might, they are living in a fool’s paradise,” he said.