GUWAHATI, Aug 25: The declaration of Union Home Secretary K Padmanabhaiah here on Saturday that the National Security Act (NSA) would be used more effectively in Assam, and the arrest of senior human rights activist Ajit Kumar Bhuyan one day later has led to wide spread apprehensions that this Act would be used in an extensive manner in the state.

Bhuyan, chairman of Manav Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS), and also editor of two widely-circulated newspapers Sadin and Asomiya Pratidin was picked up under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act last night.

Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had only last week told the State Assembly that the government had information that some intellectuals and journalists had links with the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), and he had even submitted an audio cassette to the Speaker claiming it contained proof of such links. Newspapers in the state have considered the chief minister's allegations and Padmanabhaiah's subsequent announcement as an indication that the NSA would be used in a big way, which might lead to large-scale arrest of people either having sympathy towards militants or critical of the government's latest policy. Mahanta however has clarified that he had no grudge against any journalist or intellectual as such, and that his allegations against a ``section'' of such people were based on ``concrete'' evidence.

Several members of the MASS including its secretary-general Lachit Bordoloi have been already detained, after the police carried out a raid on the organisation's head office here last Thursday.

Bordoloi had returned from Geneva the previous week after attending a UN-sponsored convention on human rights, which was also reportedly attended by at least two senior ULFA leaders on Bangladeshi passports.

While the two newspapers edited by Bhuyan have been critical of the government from day one, Dainik Asom, the vernacular daily from the Assam Tribune group said today that it feared indiscriminate application of the NSAThe ULFA meanwhile has claimed that it had no link whatsoever with the MASS.

``The MASS is a group dealing with human rights issues, and it is not a frontal body of the ULFA,'' ULFA's publicity secretary Mithinga Daimari said in a statement. The police however claim it found certain documents which tend to establish connections between the ULFA and the human rights group.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.