Kamrul Haque Barbhuyan was apprehended by the police quite accidentally at the Jorhat railway station on September 3 for travelling without a ticket.

A through checking of his belongings led to the recovery of a large number of incriminating documents including propaganda literature of the AIMLF, following which he was brought to Guwahati, where he is still under interrogation.

Initial police reports have even linked Barbhuyan to the murder of cassette king Gulshan Kumar, as also to the serial blasts of Mumbai of 1993.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani told a press conference here yesterday that the Government was aware of a well-organised attempt of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan to set up a network of sorts in India.

``Islamic militancy is increasing day by day, and it is a matter ofgreat concern for India,'' the Union Home Minister has said.

Highly-placed sources in the Assam police on the other hand said the ISI was trying to sponsor or back up various splinter groups of Islamic activists, and several organisations had sprung up in Assam in the past few years.

Two such groups, the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) and the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) have, however, been nipped in the bud with the key leaders already falling into the security dragnet, police said.

The police also said that the ISI was sending batches of trainers to Assam through the porous borders to motivate Muslim youths. Some Muslim youths of Assam have also undergone training in arms in Manipur, where one or two Islamic militant groups are active.

For the ISI, the task is not very difficult, going by the fact that Assam has about 40 lakh people who are believed to have illegally crossed over from Bangladesh, while a large number of people had also sneaked in between 1947 and1971.

There are in fact reports in the past, of Pakistan flags being hoisted in some interior districts of Assam during the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars, which add to the point that sympathy for Islamic militants is very much available here.

Besides the Assam police, the Border Security Force (BSF) too is actively monitoring the infiltration of ISI operatives and Islamic militants into Assam.

According to the BSF, there are at least 14 Muslim fundamental organisations currently operating in Assam, most of which are aided and/or abetted by the ISI.

Interestingly, the ISI had in the past even sponsored visit of several top ULFA leaders to Pakistan and Afghanistan on Bangladeshi as well as Pakistani documents, and it was the ISI which had motivated the ULFA to strike on the major oil installations of the State.