Pull out army, ULFA warns Assam govt

GUWAHATI, April 30: The outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has asked the Assam Gana Parishad- led government to be prepared t...

GUWAHATI, April 30: The outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has asked the Assam Gana Parishad- led government to be prepared to face the consequences for not fulfilling its poll promise of withdrawing the Army from the State.

The warning came in the form of a press note issued by the organisation’s publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary, and distributed to the local press here yesterday.

Daimary stated that the AGP’s poll promise to the people was that it would send back the Army to the barracks and also protest against the “repression”

by the “Indian state”. However, he regretted the fact that the party had redeployed the Army after coming to power.

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On the issue of talks with the Government, the spokesperson said that the outlawed front was “not ready” at the moment, understandably because of the three-month extension of counter-insurgency operations of the Army.

The Assam Government should first stop military pressure if it was interested in talking to the outfit, Daimary categorically said. But not before adding that the outlawed front too believed in a peaceful solution to the issue.

Through another statement, the outlaw front publicity secretary has appealed to the MLAs and ministers of the StateGovernment to make their stance clear on the renewal of Army operations as also on the “repressions and indiscriminate killings” of innocent people.

Meanwhile, the Army has ordered an inquiry into an incident of firing at Jorhat on Sunday night in which one Army jawan and a restaurant employee were killed on the spot.

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A group of jawans had entered the restaurant to eat, when one of them “accidentally” fired killing the two.

A campaign is gathering momentum in central Assam against the Army with women’s groups and other organisations accusing it of raping two women in two different villages of Nagaon and Morigaon districts last week.