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North East : Republic Day celebrated amidst boycott calls

	January 29, 2007

Republic Day celebrations in the north-east passed off peacefully with State Governments expressing their resolves to ensure peace and progress in the troubled region. Official level functions were held in the state capitals with Governors and Chief Ministers unfurling the national flag and taking salute at the parades.



People all over the region, especially Assam, Manipur and Tripura, defied boycott calls issued by militant outfits and participated in the celebrations, though not in large numbers.



“It is heartening to find people coming to attend the Republic Day functions across the region despite boycott calls,” said Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.





Tough talk greets ULFA in Assam



Meanwhile, the State government has further hardened its stand regarding resumption of talks with the militant outfit, ULFA. In an informal chat with reporters at his official residence on the eve of Republic Day, Governor Lt Gen. (Retd) Ajai Singh, said : “They have to first surrender their weapons if they want their leaders to be freed.”



Earlier, the government had merely laid down the condition that ULFA would have to give an undertaking that it would sit down for talks if it wanted its leaders released.



Gen. Singh said there was no possibility of the government declaring a ceasefire again. The 42-day ceasefire had allowed ULFA’s scattered cadre to regroup, which was evident from its recent widespread attacks.



“They are not interested in holding talks, though the government has kept its doors open,” he said. “But options for talks are still being maintained,” the Governor added.



Earlier, on Jan. 23, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi admitted that deciding to suspend army operations against ULFA last year was an error in judgement, though a well-intended one.



The Chief Minister criticised Bangladesh for providing shelter to the militants and refusing to admit so. “This provides ample evidence that Bangladesh is encouraging them, resulting in retardation of the state’s progress,” said the Chief Minister.



Besides, ULFA’s mode of operation, its unwillingness to come for talks or co-operate with the government hints at the outfit’s links with the ISI, or at least the fact that the militant organisation is working at the behest of “anti-Assam forces”, he said.





ULFA threat to VVIPs : Z+ security for Gogoi



The fresh run of terror by ULFA since the beginning of the year and the outfit’s threat to eliminate Congress leaders have finally forced the Centre to concede to the state police’s demand to put Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi under National Security Guard (NSG) cover.



This was confirmed by State Director-General of Police (DGP) R.K. Mathur. He said the Chief Minister’s security has been beefed up to Z+ category after assessing the latest threat perception.





CM’s plea to ULFA to end boycott of National Games



Chief minister Tarun Gogoi has reiterated his appeal to ULFA to revoke its boycott call against the 33rd National Games for the sake of sports and the prestige of Assam.



Inaugurating the Bhogeswari Phukanani indoor stadium at the Rudra Singha Sports Complex on Jan. 25, Gogoi asked ULFA to lift the boycott call and create a “sporting atmosphere” for the sake of the event.



New Delhi has given its nod for the Games, beginning next month. Naveen Verma, secretary (North-east) in the Union Home Ministry, paid a surprise visit to the state and inspected several venues, including the Games Village.



Sources said Verma also held discussions with police, paramilitary forces and the army and was satisfied with the arrangements. If the law and order situation took a turn for the worse in the run-up to the event, then the fate of the Games could not be predicted, the source added.



UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will inaugurate the prestigious event.



State Chief secretary P.C. Sarma said that more central forces would be deployed in the state to maintain law and order during the National Games in Guwahati. He said the state government has requested Delhi to “speedily despatch” more bomb-detection devices to the police.





Secret killings : Congress absolves former CM Mahanta



The very Congress that once implicated former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta in extra-judicial killings during his second term in office has now chosen to bail him out for no apparent reason.



An affidavit filed by the Tarun Gogoi government recently in response to a public interest litigation against Mahanta in the Supreme Court states that allegations about “secret killings” between 1998 and 2001 are all “false and untenable”.



The affidavit also denies that there was a conspiracy between Dispur (the seat of Government in Assam) and Delhi during that period to soften up ULFA by targeting families of the militants. It states that the incidents mentioned in the PIL “do not show prima facie involvement of state/central machineries in the alleged killings”.



Most of the victims in the “secret killings” were family members and close relatives of ULFA militants. The word “secret” was used to describe these incidents because the killers were never identified. Aalok, the NGO behind the PIL, had accused Mahanta of conspiring with the erstwhile NDA government at the Centre to get 265 “innocent” Assamese civilians murdered by unidentified assailants.



The NGO claimed that Mahanta, who was then also the president of the Asom Gana Parishad, confessed during a party meeting that his government ordered the “secret killings” at the behest of the Union home ministry. It attached a newspaper report in support of its claim.



The Congress-led government’s affidavit, however, contends that most of the killings cited by the NGO in its PIL find mention in police records. The implication is that there is nothing “secret” about those incidents.



The affidavit also accuses Aalok of getting the figures wrong. The NGO, it says, has listed 188 killings in its PIL but police records for that period mention only 167 casualties.



“It is only for 21 persons that the police have no records,” the government’s affidavit says.



The Gogoi government constituted as many as three panels to probe the “secret killings”. The last one, the Justice K.N. Saikia Commission, handed Dispur its interim report on some of the cases last year.



Almost made redundant by the Congress government’s affidavit in the Supreme Court, Justice K.N. Saikia (Retd.), said on Jan. 24 that he would continue with the job till Dispur directed him otherwise.