WASIM RAHMAN
Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa at Merapani on Wednesday.
Merapani (Golaghat), Oct. 13 : Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa said the outfit would take up the issue of security of people living along the inter-state boundary with the Centre in the next round of peace talks after a tour of Merapani today.
Most people were busy trading wares at a Merapani market when the unusual visitor began turning heads.
A flash of recognition, a few whispers, and soon Ulfa chairman had a 100-strong audience listening in rapt attention to his promises to take up the security issue with the Centre.
The Ulfa chairman said the organisation was born for securing the legitimate rights and protection of the indigenous Assamese people and threat to the lives of people living along the inter-state boundaries was a serious matter given that the state shares a long border with various states.
“We will definitely demand from the Centre that it ensures safety to lives and properties of people residing along the inter-state boundary, especially at places like Merapani, which have a troubled and a bloody history,” Rajkhowa said, adding that the outfit would put pressure on the Centre to find an early and lasting solution to the vexed border problem.
He stood just opposite the local taxi and truck stand, where tension had suddenly erupted last week when Naga taxi owners attempted to set up their taxi stand and asked the Assamese vehicle owners to register with their union at Bhandari (sub-division of Wokha district across the border).
As Rajkhowa spoke, Naga men, women, police vehicles from the other side tried to figure out who he was.
Merapani — about 350km southeast of Guwahati — falls under D sector of the Assam-Nagaland boundary and is part of the “disputed area belt”.
The area under Golaghat Assembly constituency is represented by Ajanta Neog, the PWD minister in Tarun Gogoi’s cabinet.
The Ulfa leader said he had been to this area several times earlier when he was underground during the armed struggle. After the 1985 June attack here by Naga forces when over 100 policemen and civilians were killed and police personnel were fleeing, Rajkhowa and his cadres had come to extend protection to the people, he said.
He was back again in the early and mid nineties.
“We will always be here to support you, unlike other leaders who come, go and forget and do nothing,” he said.
Rajkhowa, while replying to complaints against CRPF personnel’s failure to maintain neutrality and siding with the Nagaland government and people’s attempts to encroach on Assam land, said Ulfa would urge the Centre to review the security arrangements along the border hotspots.
Cabinet minister Rockybul Hussain told The Telegraph soon after a meeting of the council of ministers that chief minister Tarun Gogoi has decided to seek Delhi’s intervention to ensure deployment of neutral forces in the disputed areas according to the bilateral pact between the neighbouring states in 1985.
“Since we have withdrawn our personnel from the area, we have also asked Nagaland to withdraw its Naga Armed Police personnel by today,” Hussain said.
Dispur has denied any encroachment by Nagaland in areas under Golaghat district but also asserted that the neighbouring state will be withdrawing Naga police deployed from Merapani by tonight.
WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING FROM GUWAHATI
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