Other States - Assam   

Militants surrender

Guwahati: Ten years ago, he took an oath to take up arms and die for the “liberation of Assam from India” as he expressed his allegiance to the constitution of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).

On Thursday, self-styled sergeant Bhaskor Bora, alias Rantu Gogoi, of Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district took the pledge along with 65 ULFA cadres and two of the Adivasi National Liberation Army (ANLA) to protect the country’s unity and integrity and shifted allegiance to the Indian Constitution.

Each militant was symbolically welcomed into the mainstream with a gamocha (a piece of cloth) and a rose.

The return of the 68 militants to the mainstream was marked by a formal surrender of their arms and ammunition before General Officer Commanding (GOC), 4 Corps of the Army, Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal, State Director General of Police R.N. Mathur and other senior State government, Army and police officials. The ceremony was organised at the Firing Range of the 4 Assam Police Battalion headquarters at Kahilipara here. The 66 surrendered ULFA cadres included four self-styled sergeants major and the finance controllers of the outfit’s 28th battalion that operates in upper Assam and the neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh.

Speaking in a mix of Assamese and fluent English on behalf of the surrendered militants, Bhaskar, who had studied up to class VII, said that hardcore cadres like him were frustrated and disillusioned as there was no internal democracy within the ULFA. “We suffered political alienation. We were not allowed to speak. There is no democracy and there is total authoritarianism in ULFA now.” The militants deposited eight AK-56 rifles, five pistols, ten revolvers, a rocket-propelled grenade cell, a single shot pistol, 27 grenades, eight magazines of AK-56, 145 rounds of AK series, 56 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, four rounds of .22 ammunition, five grenade detonators, 5 kg of RDX, three gelatin sticks and five programmed time device switches. Each of them was symbolically welcomed into the mainstream with a gamocha and a rose.

Inspector General of Police (Special Branch) Khagen Sharma said that 13,269 militants, including 8718 of the ULFA, had surrendered in the State since 1991. He said there was widespread disillusionment among the rank and file of the ULFA for not being able to express their opinion as the outfit had not held its general council meeting since 1996.

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Militants surrender

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