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Journalism of Courage
GUWAHATI, April 12: The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)’s highest decision-making body, the steering committee has suffered a major blow following the arrest of its vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi in Calcutta on Wednesday, intelligence sources said here on Saturday.
Gogoi, a founder vice-president of the outfit, is the fourth top leader of the ULFA to have fallen into the security dragnet within a span of eight months, the other three being cultural secretary Pranati Deka, general secretary Anup Chetia and self-styled major Robin Neog. Assam Director-General of Though it remains a fact that none of the four were actually captured by the state police.
While Gogoi was captured by the Calcutta police following a tip-off from the Army, Chetia is languishing in a Dhaka jail after he was picked up from a posh locality in the Bangladesh capital by the police of that country in December, 1997. Cultural secretary Pranati Deka on the other hand was a catch of the Mumbai police in September last.
Thecapture of Gogoi incidentally was possible after the Army intelligence followed him while he was on his way out from the ULFA’s general headquarters in Sukhani inside Bhutan, heading for Dhaka, where several other top militant leaders are believed to be still staying.
Yet another senior ULFA leader Altaf Ali alias Rantu Ahmed, political secretary of the outfit’s Manas regional unit, covering the lower Assam districts too has fallen into the dragnet on Friday morning following a siege laid by the 5 Dogra regiment in Nalbari district. Two more top leaders who matter in the outfit’s organisation are also in jail, they being Samir Baglari alias Deka Raja and Saponti Bordoloi, while five top militants were killed in encounters with security forces during the past twelve months.
They are captain Satya Barua alias Strong Hazarika, Anal Kakati Randeep Mech, Chakra Gohain and Raju Sharma.
Though this arrest comes as a major blow after Chetia’s arrest, the ULFA has made best out of worst in utilising suchcaptures to promote the organisation and whip up international sympathy in its favour. ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa had in his groups’ 19th foundation day address on April seven claimed that a number of international NGOs and human rights bodies have pleaded with the Bangladesh government to release Chetia unconditionally.
Rajkhowa claimed that these NGOs and human rights groups belonged to countries like Britain, Germany, Geneva, Austria and the Phillipines, and he also said that the ULFA has called upon those groups to stand firmly behind it for releasing Chetia.
"We have been making relentless efforts to draw the attention of the world community to the grave violations of human rights in Assam under Indian colonial occupation, and last year we presented our case in a number of international forums particularly the UN sub-commission on human rights,"Rajkhowa, in his address had said.
The ULFA however is yet to give out its reactions to Gogoi’s arrest, while no attempt has been made to muster thesupport of people in its strongholds in Dibrugarh and Nalbari districts, as had been done when Chetia was arrested in Dhaka last year.
