Police suspect the hand of the banned Ulfa(I) in the grenade blast that took place in front of an Army company operating base at Dirak in upper Assam’s Tinsukia district on Wednesday evening.

Two youths on a two-wheeler had hurled the grenade outside the army camp under 2 Mountain Division headquarters after the sentry posted at the gate tried to confront the duo, an Army official said, adding combing operations were launched soon after to nab the duo.

Tinsukia is one of the districts apart from Dibrugarh, Sivasagar and Charaideo where the AFSPA, a contentious central Act which gives the armed forces unbridled powers to search, arrest and shoot in areas declared as disturbed, is still applicable.

A police official told The Telegraph on Thursday evening that the duo were yet to be apprehended but they suspect the involvement of the Ulfa(I).

However, the police official said a suspected Ulfa(I) cadre had surrendered before the police with a grenade about two hours before the 7.30pm blast on Wednesday.

“We are still debriefing him and checking his background. His name is Achyutnand Neog, aged 25. He said there was one more colleague with him and he also had a grenade.

“Two hours later we heard about the Dirak blast. As such we are suspecting the hand of the Ulfa(I) in yesterday’s blast,” the official said.

The blast comes less than 10 days of Assam chief minister’s appeal to the banned outfit to join the peace process while adding that the outfit has not carried out any
violence over the past two years.

The Assam police chief G.P. Singh had posted on X on Wednesday that it was a “minor blast” carried out in “an attempt to draw the attention of senior leadership of police away from the 2013 APSC Scam investigation”.

The police have reportedly picked up 34 officers from various locations in the APSC cash-for-job scam since Tuesday but two were arrested and remanded to five days in police custody on Wednesday.