Rajeev Bhattacharyya is the author of Lens and the Guerrilla: Insurgency in India's Northeast, the first pictorial book on insurgency in India. He is a freelance journalist based in Guwahati and had earlier worked for The Times of India, The Telegraph, The Indian Express and Times Now. In 2004, he was selected for the Chevening Fellowship in the U.K. where he studied the peace process between the British government and the Irish Republican Army. He was the founding executive editor of Seven Sisters Post in Guwahati. Besides contributing regularly to academic journals on issues ranging from conflicts to the deteriorating natural environment in Northeast, he also lectures in reputed institutes.
<p>"This is the untold story of the outlawed separatist outfit, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), from its inception in the early 1980s in the backdrop of the historic Assam Movement, to the present when a peace process is on between a faction led by its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and the government. The account delves into all major episodes, delineates their causes and effects and debunks interpretations about the movement that have gained currency over the years.</p><p>During its heyday, ULFA blazed a trail to guerrilla training centres along the Pakistan Afghanistan border, established a string of camps in Bhutan and Myanmar and hideouts in Bangladesh where it received regular consignments of weapons from China.</p><p>The fast-paced narrative is based on exclusive interviews with ULFA functionaries in the Northeast, Myanmar and Bangladesh, former officers engaged in counter-insurgency operations, as well as papers of ULFA leaders."</p><div><br></div>
