Guwahati, October 14 2009: The Unified Command today instructed its operations group to take all measures to neutralise the Ranjan Daimary faction of the National Democratic Front of Boroland.

It further discussed the issue of raising special police officers in the vulnerable areas of the state as declared by chief minister Tarun Gogoi and identified the weapons seized from militants over the years for arming the new units.

A meeting of the strategy group of the Unified Command, chaired by chief secretary P.C.Sharma, debated on the very idea of raising the SPOs given the controversy that such a move had triggered in Manipur recently.

Gogoi made the declaration during a visit to Bhimajuli last week after 13 persons were gunned down by militants belonging to the Daimary faction of the NDFB.Today's was the first meeting of the strategy group after the Bhimajuli massacre.

Sources said a large number of weapons seized from militants over the years were at the disposal of the government and these could be distributed among the SPOs as an immediate measure.

Another source said the move was contemplated to beef up the village defence party, train and arm it to take on subversive elements in remote areas."The idea is to provide security to people who cannot be reached by security personnel on time.

Since we already have the VDP in place, why not train and arm them?" the source pointed out.

Last year, residents of Heirok village in Manipur had demanded weapons for self-protection against militants.

The Ibobi Singh government responded by recruiting 301 SPOs from among the village youths for deployment in the village but subsequently there were problems when the government wanted to deploy them elsewhere, which was not accepted by the SPOs.

However, the Unified Command has instructed its operations group to fine-tune its strategy and go all out against the NDFB, which is apparently disinterested in any kind of peace initiative.Sources said the directive was given because the Centre had given its nod to go all out against "recalcitrant rebels" without affecting the innocent ones.

"The Centre has responded to the plea of the chief minister to direct all security agencies under it to go all out against the rebels," the source added.

Besides, the meeting also discussed the mass surrender of the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel) and the situation in the district in its wake.

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