By IRNA,
Guwahati, India : ULFA leader hails Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s decision not to object to the release of jailed leadership for peace talks.
The PM’s decision in favor of the release of the leadership of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) to facilitate opening peace talks with the rebel outfit has been generally hailed, with prospects of putting an end to more than three decades of violent insurgency in India’s northeastern state of Assam.
“The Prime Minister’s announcement is indeed very positive and we welcome his gesture,” Bijon Mahajan, legal counsel of jailed ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, told IRNA.
The Prime Minister told this to a six-member delegation of the newly floated Citizen’s Forum in New Delhi Monday. Among the key demands put forward by the Forum to the Prime Minister was releasing six top jailed ULFA leaders to enable them hold their central executive with full freedom so that they could sit for peace talks.
The Forum is taking the lead to explore possibilities of opening peace talks between the ULFA and the government. The Forum, an 11-member committee comprising academics, writers, retired police and army officers, rights leaders, and intellectuals, was formed in April and claims the support of at least 100 civil society and other ethnic groups.
“We are happy with the developments and from our side we are ready to do whatever possible to start the process of political negotiations with the ULFA, although we cannot give a timeline,” Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said.
“We are indeed happy with the Prime Minister’s positive approach as we showed commitment in opening talks with the ULFA,” Hiranya Bhattacharya, one of six Forum leaders who met the Prime Minister, said.
Barring ULFA’s elusive commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah, the entire top brass of the outfit is in jail. The imprisoned leaders include chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, deputy commander-in-chief Raju Baruah, self-styled foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury, finance secretary Chitrabon Hazarika, cultural secretary Pranati Deka, and ULFA political ideologue Bhimkanta Buragohain.
Two other leaders – ULFA vice chairman Pradip Gogoi and publicity chief Mithinga Daimary, are currently out on bail and currently engaged in drumming up public support for opening peace talks.
“This is a positive beginning and we hope sooner rather than later the peace talks would begin. We would give full support to any such positive developments,” Mrinal Hazarika, leader of the pro-talk faction of the ULFA, said.
Hazarika along with about 200 militants belonging to ULFA’s Alpha and Charlie companies of the 28th battalion, the two most potent striking units, declared a unilateral ceasefire in 2008. The group named itself as the pro-talk ULFA faction.
“Let us hope peace would dawn in Assam once for all so that people of the state do not have to witness killings and bloodshed anymore,” noted Assamese writer Indira Goswami, said.
Goswami in the past tried brokering peace between the ULFA and the government.
The ULFA is waging a war for independence since 1979 and has always maintained that talks if any should revolve around their main demand of sovereignty.