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North East: Secret killings in Assam : Panel indicts former Chief Minister

	November 19, 2007

The Justice K.N. Saikia Commission, constituted by the Gogoi Government to probe the much publicised secret killings in Assam during the tenure of AGP-led government in 1998-2001, has held the former State Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta responsible for “Ulfocide”, a play on the term “genocide”, and the fact that the victims were family members or people close to ULFA militants.



The report tabled in the State Assembly on Nov. 15, points to “lurking evidence of the police-Sulfa nexus in the killings” and suggests dismantling of the Unified Command structure for counter-insurgency operations.



Constituted in 2005, the K.N. Saikia Commission held Mahanta responsible for the extra-judicial killings between 1998 and 2001, when he was the Chief Minister and in charge of the Home Department. The panel also indicted Independent legislator Kushal Duori in one case of mass murder - that of suspected ULFA “conduit” Uma Gogoi’s family.



Justice Saikia said in his report that the killings were the outcome of a nexus between police and surrendered ULFA members, collectively referred to as SULFA.



The findings of the preceding inquiry by Justice J.N. Sarma Commission, which the Congress rejected in August 2005 and never made public, were almost the opposite of Saikia’s conclusions. The Sarma Commission not only gave Mahanta a “clean chit” but also to the police. However, it did point to a conspiracy and cited revenge as the motive for the killings. Most of the victims were either family members or people close to ULFA militants.



The government rejected the findings and the report would not have been made public had Guwahati High Court not intervened in the matter. Hearing a petition filed by Mahanta, the court said the government must file the reports of both inquiry commissions in the Assembly.



While the Sarma Commission spoke of a conspiracy but did not identify the guilty, the Saikia Commission said “there is enough evidence to show that the then Home Minister was at the helm of these extra-constitutional killings”.



Coining a new term for the killings - “Ulfocide” - the Saikia Commission said in its four-part report that its inquiry into 35 such cases had left it with no doubt of the conspiracy between the police and Sulfa.



“There is lurking evidence of the police-Sulfa nexus in the killings, some of the latter being constituted into an extra-constitutional authority and used as the executioners, the modus operandi being to visit the family, ask members to persuade its ULFA members to surrender, failing which an advance team would be sent to survey the location and structure of the house, followed by armed and masked men who would knock on the door to wake up the inmates and then drag him/them out and shoot him/them dead, or take him/them away and secretly kill and throw the bodies somewhere.”



The Saikia Commission said all the people who were targeted paid the price for not being able to persuade their relatives in ULFA to come for peace talks.



“The then Chief Minister himself got press appeals to persuade them, published by different literary organisations of Assam like the Assam Sahitya Sabha, the Bodo Sahitya Sabha etc. Having failed to receive the desired response, the conspiracy to kill members of those ULFA and ULFA-related families must have been hatched in secrecy.”



The Commission went on to say that “all of those who orchestrated the effort to bring ULFA members to peace talks must have also been co-conspirators in the killings”.



The Saikia Commission has also criticised the functioning of the Unified Command structure for counter-insurgency operations and suggested its dismantling. “To make the police and the Army work together in a civil situation may result in politicisation of the Army on the one hand and militarisation of the police on the other. The result will be that we have a militarised police and a politicised military. Indeed, in almost all the cases under reference, we found evidence of frequent visits of armymen to the ULFA families and during some of these so-called encounters.”



But for all the noise made by the Tarun Gogoi government about the Saikia Commission finding Mahanta guilty, its action-taken report (ATR) was silent on the indictment.



Based on the recommendations of the Saikia Commission, the government decided to pay Rs 3 lakh to the families of the victims in the 35 cases that were investigated. It also agreed to re-investigate 20 cases, as suggested by the panel.



Addressing the media in the central hall of the Assembly, Chief Minister Gogoi dared Mahanta to challenge the findings of the Saikia Commission in the court if he felt injustice had been done to him. He said the findings did justice to the families of the victims and sent out a strong message that nobody, no matter how high and mighty, was above the law.



“No police officer will ever dare to get involved in such a conspiracy in future. The report is an eye-opener for all. It has proved that nobody is above the law,” Gogoi said.



What he did not say was why the government’s action-taken report made no mention of Mahanta’s indictment.



The Chief Minister said the proposed committee of experts would be asked to establish whether any government agency was liable for penal action along with those named in the report. Former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was in charge of the Home Department during the period (1998-2001) when the “secret killings” occurred.



Commenting on the Commission’s recommendation to dismantle the Unified Command structure, the Chief Minister said that there was no possibility, at least not in the immediate future, of winding up the Unified Command. He argued that the state of law and order was not conducive for such a radical measure.





Sivsagar alone witnessed 61 secret killings



The report reveals that the people of Sivsagar district were witness to one of the darkest era in post-independent Assam when 61 youth were brutally done to death by secret killers, a fact that rocked the State in recent history.



It all began with ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa’s brother Dimba Rajkhowa’s killing on August 10, 1998 in Dibrugarh ASTC bus stand.





Report biased, says Mahanta



Reacting to the findings of Justice Saikia Commission, former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said the report was “biased.” “The constitution of the Commission by the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government was politically motivated to malign him,” he added.



Mahanta denied that the AGP-led coalition government was involved in secret killings. The “process of secret killings started in the country during the Congress rule in Punjab. Taking cue from there, the political bosses of the Congress in Assam coined a new phrase to misguide the simple people of Assam.”



Mahanta’s charges baseless : Gogoi



Chief Minister Gogoi was quick to refute Mahanta’s allegations that the Government tabled the reports with the motive to eliminate him politically, to win the panchayat elections and to placate the proscribed ULFA. Addressing a press conference, he said the State Government had no ill motive behind placing the Justice (Retd) Saikia Commission’s reports on secret killing before the Assembly.



“There is no need to eliminate Mahanta politically, he is a `half-dead’ politician”, Gogoi said.



Gogoi said that Mahanta levelled baseless charges against Justice K.N. Saikia by describing the former Supreme Court judge as a Congressman. In fact, Justice Saikia contested the Congress in two elections as a now defunct Ujani Asom Rajya Parishad nominee in 1972 and 1978. “His organisation also fielded a candidate against me in 1971,” said Gogoi.



On Mahanta’s allegation that he came to power with the help of ULFA, Gogoi said that it was with the help of the people that his party came to power. “It seems that Mahanta is convinced that without the help of ULFA it is not possible for any party to come to power. And, hence, it may be surmised that he (Mahanta) and his party might have come to power twice with the help of the outfit,” Gogoi said.



Announcing the acceptance of the Saikia Commission’s findings, Gogoi asserted that the Cabinet Ministers in the Mahanta Ministry were also responsible for the secret killings. They had a collective responsibility, he said emphatically.



Daring the AGP either to accept or to reject the findings of the Commission, he described the claim of AGP president Brindaban Goswami that neither the Government nor the Ministers in the AGP regime were involved in the killings, as misleading. For, Gogoi said, Goswami had not denied that there were killings. The question it naturally leads to, is - who were the people involved in those killings. Moreover, the incidents of killing were of similar nature and the modus operandi of the killers also remained the same, Gogoi said.



The Congress constituted the Saikia Commission after rejecting the report of the preceding judicial inquiry by the J.N. Sarma Commission. That report was also tabled on Nov. 15 in accordance with a directive from Guwahati High Court.





PCPIA sets three-month deadline for Gogoi



The People’s Committee for Peace Initiatives, Assam (PCPIA), the pressure group of 27 organisations mobilising support for peace talks between the government and ULFA, has set a three-month deadline for the Tarun Gogoi government to come up with a concrete plan of action on the sensational findings of the Justice (retd) K.N. Saikia Commission. The organisation also sought a complete list of those killed.



One of PCPIA’s chief conveners, Lachit Bordoloi, said if the government really wished to show its sincerity and commitment towards the families and relatives of those killed in the “Ulfocide”, as the Saikia Commission has described the secret killings, it should set up the experts’ panel immediately to weigh the possibility of legal action against former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and others indicted by the panel.



The PCPIA chief convener also said it was Dispur’s moral responsibility to probe all the cases. “Only a few cases were probed by the Commission. There are many. This can be done through a separate measure, such as giving the Saikia Commission another mandate to probe the cases,” he said. The Saikia Commission had probed 35 cases in all.



Peace process : ULFA’s ‘adamant attitude’ blamed



The Assam Government on Nov. 16 blamed the “adamant attitude” of the ULFA for the derailment of the peace process following three rounds of talks with the PCG. In reply to a short notice question by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta (AGP-P) in the State Assembly, Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain, who was replying on behalf of the Chief Minister, said that time and again, the Government appealed to all the militant groups to abjure violence and come to the negotiation table to solve their problems through talks. He said though the ULFA was adopting an adamant attitude, the Government was still hoping that the outfit would abjure violence and come forward for talks within the framework of the Constitution of India.



Hussain also informed the House that with effect from June 22, 2004, the Government has been paying ex-gratia grant of Rs 3 lakh to the next of kin of each of the persons killed by militants. He said that the money is paid after receiving reports from the concerned Deputy Commissioners.



The Centre released an amount of Rs 21.67 crore to the State Government for the rehabilitation of 5496 militants who returned to the mainstream during the period from 2001-02 to 2006-07, said Hussain in reply to a separate question by Mahanta.



Hussain said the Government of India first launched a scheme for the benefit of the surrendered militants in 1998. Under that scheme, the surrendered militants, who stayed in the rehabilitation training camps were given a monthly stipend of Rs 2000 each. But, following requests by the State Government, the Centre formulated a fresh policy - surrender-cum-rehabilitation scheme for the militants of NE region in 2005. Under the new scheme, the surrendered militants are given a monthly stipend for three years and Rs 1.50 lakh is kept in fixed deposit against each surrendered militant. The money will be released to the surrendered militants after three years of their surrender.



The Minister said the surrendered militants are also encouraged to establish cooperative societies for creation of self-employment avenues and more than 150 such cooperatives were formed in different parts of the State. He said that so far 847 militants, who returned to the mainstream, were appointed in the central paramilitary forces.



Hussain also admitted that the State Government, on its own, does not have any scheme for the rehabilitation of the surrendered militants and it is implementing the Central scheme.





ULFA, NSCN in abduction row



The two most powerful militant groups of the region are on a collision course. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has given the Naga militant faction, NSCN (Isak-Muivah), three days to release seven members who were allegedly abducted by the Naga group on Nov. 11 from Namtola, along the Assam-Nagaland border in Sivasagar district.



An ULFA spokesman, Raju Barua, said in a statement on Nov. 12 that Naga militants killed two of his men and abducted seven more when they were crossing a forest in Namtola. The NSCN (I-M) admitted to killing one ULFA member, injuring another and “arresting” a third.



The outfit’s spokesman said, the ULFA team was attacked for entering NSCN (I-M) territory without permission. “Our boys did not attack the ULFA members without reason. They were our friends once and we may be friends again in future. They were attacked because they entered our territory without our permission.” He said two of the ULFA militants involved in that incident were now in police custody.



The ULFA has links with the Khaplang faction of the NSCN, which is engaged in a bloody turf war with the NSCN (I-M). The outfit shares some of the Khaplang group’s camps in Myanmar and uses Mon district of Nagaland, a stronghold of the Naga group, as a corridor between the region and that country.



The ULFA described the incident as a move by the Tangkhuls - NSCN(I-M) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah is a Tangkhul - to create a rift between the Nagas and the Assamese. It threatened to mobilise other Naga communities to campaign against the Tangkhuls if the abducted men were not released within three days.



The ULFA spokesman said no tribe, barring the Tangkhuls, had ever objected to providing “passage” to his outfit through Naga territory. “Just as the Nagas have the right to pass through Assam, ULFA and the Assamese people, too, have every right to pass through Naga territory,” he added.



The NSCN (I-M) retorted that blaming one Naga tribe for the incident was unfair. “ULFA should not try to create divisions in the Naga family. The NSCN does not represent any particular tribe; it represents the Naga community as a whole,” Konyak said.