When Luit Deuri surrendered with 300 rebels on 13 August, little did anyone realise his disclosures would unsettle basic perceptions. The former "G2" of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) made three major revelations, first in an interview to this writer (that was broadcast on the BBC) and then to the Assam police. Deuri said that ULFA was receiving weapons from China on a regular basis; that many of these consignments were now coming into ULFA's bases in Bhutan from Tibet over the Himalayan passes; and that, in the past, ULFA had picked up weapons consignments from Chittagong port in Bangladesh, where they had been landed by the Chinese, concealed in cargo vessels. Deuri's diaries are lost, but he remembers two dates when he took delivery of the weapons.
A review of the state of the various Northeast rebellions by a noted journalist of the region reveals that the quiet on the Naga and Mizo fronts is accompanied by a suddenly sputtering Tripura, and an ULFA that seems to be receiving support from Beijing.
Indian intelligence officials have "fallen from the sky" over these disclosures, said one source. Meanwhile, Amiyo Samanta, a former Intelligence Bureau official who served long in north-eastern India, had this to say: "We knew for sure the Chinese armed and trained Naga, Mizo and Manipuri rebels in the 1960s and 1970s, but not after that. Deuri's disclosures, if true, will unsettle our perceptions and revive fears of a China hand behind the insurgencies of North-east India."
- Deuri says he first went to China in 1989 with Paresh Barua, chief of ULFA's military wing. That was when some Chinese military officials assured them of arms supply through Burma. That was the beginning of the ULFA-China nexus.
- Deuri says he personally took delivery of one consignment of 143 rifles and 235 revolvers from China in one of four camps in Bhutan on 11 April 1999.
- On 5 February 1995, he had led a group into Chittagong to take delivery of a much larger consignment brought, he said, by the Chinese navy.