WEST BENGAL-Wise Selectivity

Drifting to Disaster THE political situation in Assam seems set to degenerate to new levels of morbidity with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) taking hostages in order to drive a hard bargain with the state government. Whatever optimism was generated by the installation of an elected government is rapidly evaporating. Nor, for that matter, do the 263 companies of the paramilitary forces currently stationed in Assam seem to be of much help. The ULFA has since July gone on a kidnapping spree with a view to ensuring the release of its detained cadres. The aim is obviously to restore the organisation's armed capacity and the quality of its leadership to the pre-Operation Bajrang levels. Though Operation Bajrang, which commenced on November 28, 1990, and ended on April 20 this year, as a purely military venture could do little to root out the ULFA's substantial grassroots popularity, it did manage to round up a large number of the organisation's activists.