Ingti Kathar Songbijit is a militant leader who once led the secessionist faction of

National Democratic Front of Boroland The National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) was an armed separatist outfit which sought to obtain a sovereign Boroland for the Bodo people. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the Government of India. NDFB traces its origin t ...

(NDFB) in

North-East India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

. Although he served as the leader of an organization that claims to represent

Bodo people Boro (बर'/बड़ो ), also called Bodo, is the largest ethnolinguistic group in the Assam state of India. They are a part of the greater Bodo-Kachari people, Bodo-Kachari family of ethnolinguistic groups and are spread across northeast ...

, Songbijit is not a Bodo himself. He was born in a Karbi family. He hails from the Chelaikhati village, which is located in the

Biswanath Chariali Biswanath Chariali (IPA: ˌbɪswəˈnɑːθ ˈtʃɑːrɪˌælɪ) is a city and a municipal board in Biswanath district in the state of Assam, India. This city is the district headquarters of Biswanath district, which was created on 15 August 201 ...

sub-division of

Sonitpur district Sonitpur district ron: ˌsə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊə or ˌʃə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊəis an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. The district headquarters is located at Tezpur. Etymology The name of the is derived from a mythological story fo ...

, Assam. Kathar is a sub-clan (''kurjon'') of the Ingti clan, which enjoys a high status in the Karbi society; the traditional chief priests come from the Kathar ''kurjon''. As a young man, Songbijit joined National Democratic Front of Boroland, a militant group seeking secession from India, to establish a sovereign Boroland. After a section of NDFB gave up the secessionist demand and agreed to stage talks with the government, NDFB split into two factions. Songbijit remained with the anti-talks faction NDFB(ATF), which was led by NDFB's founder Ranjan Daimary. In 2009, Songbijit was promoted to the post of "army commander" in NDFB(ATF). In early 2010s, after Ranjan Daimary was arrested, a section of his group, now called NDFB(R), agreed to engage in talks with the government. The faction opposed to the talks elected Songbijit as the "Interim President" of NDFB on 13–14 November 2012. The new faction led by Songbijit is termed as NDFB(S) by the media and the government (Songbijit himself refers to his group as simply NDFB). In 2014, NDFB(S) was believed to have around 270 cadres, and was led by a 9-member "national council". Its cadres were scattered across several camps located in

Nagaland Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...

. In January 2014, the

Assam Police The Assam Police is the law enforcement agency for the state of Assam in India. A regular police force was initiated in Assam by the British after the Treaty of Yandaboo to maintain the law and order. It functions under the Department of Home A ...

included him in the list of 15 most wanted criminals, and declared a cash reward of 1 million for information leading to his arrest. NDFB(S) was accused by the government of carrying out the

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...

and

December December is the twelfth and final month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is also the last of seven months to have a length of 31 days. December got its name from the Latin word ''decem'' (meaning ten) because it was or ...

2014 attacks against Muslim migrants and

Adivasi The Adivasi refers to inhabitants of Indian subcontinent, generally tribal people. The term is a Sanskrit word coined in the 1930s by political activists to give the tribal people an indigenous identity by claiming an indigenous origin. The term ...

Tea tribes respectively, resulting in deaths of over a hundred civilians. Songbijit's faction was known to be in touch with other secessionist militant groups, including

ULFA The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) (Assamese: সংযুক্ত মুক্তি বাহিনী, অসম) is an armed separatist organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an indep ...

and

KLO Klo or KLO may refer to: * Kalibo International Airport (IATA: KLO), Philippines * Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, India * Karabakh Liberation Organization (), Azerbaijan * Korea Liaison Office, an American intelligence unit in the Korean War * ...

. While ULFA seeks to establish a united sovereign Assam, KLO demands a sovereign

Kamtapur Kamtapur is an autonomous area in the Assam state of India administered by the Kamatapur Autonomous Council. History Kamatapur emerged as a sovereign state in the middle of the 13th century, and it continued through fluctuating levels of prosp ...

for

Koch people The Koch are a small trans-border ethnic group of Assam and Meghalaya in India and northern Bangladesh. The group consists of nine matrilineal and strictly exogamous clans, with some of them preserving a hitherto sparsely documented Boro-Garo ...

. Both these proposed states have territories overlapping with the proposed sovereign

Bodoland The Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), informally Bodoland, is an autonomous region and a proposed state in Assam, Northeast India. It is made up of five districts on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river below the foothills of Bhutan and A ...

. Songbijit justified his alliances with these groups claiming that Koch and Bodo people have common ethnic roots, and NDFB has more similarities than differences with ULFA. According to him, the civilians killed in NDFB attacks were either

collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...

, or those involved in anti-NDFB activities. In a 2013 interview, Songbijit stated that he would agree to talks, if the government agrees to hold a referendum on Bodoland independence. According to him, corruption and diversity in religion, caste and community will ultimately lead to

balkanization Balkanization is the fragmentation of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another. It is usually caused by differences of ethnicity, culture, and religion and some other factor ...

of India "into 600 pieces". In 2015, Songbijit was deposed as the NDFB President, following differences between him and other top leaders.

References

{{Authority control Indian guerrillas People from Sonitpur district