The military bosses of Northeast India's most potent separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), have clearly come in the line of fire ofsecurity forces (SFs) engaged in counter-insurgency operations. The ease with which the Assam Police, on September 17, 2007, captured Prabal Neog, the 43-year-old'commander' of the ULFA's dreaded '28th battalion', fancifully called the 'KashmirCamp', is a case in point. Neog was apprehended along with his wife and son, near Tezpur in the Sonitpurdistrict, 180 kilometres north of Assam's capital, Guwahati. This was, at once, a'prize catch' and an easy one, and there lies the irony.