ULFA (I) chief’s nephew joins outfit
GUWAHATI: : United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) or ULFA (I) chief Paresh Baruah’s nephew has joined the separatist group, the Assam police said on Sunday and warned that the disaffection over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the state was drawing fresh recruits to the outfit.
Munna Baruah, 22, is the son of Paresh Baruah’s elder brother. He had been missing for over a week. “A missing person’s complaint was filed at the Digboi police station on November 15,” said Tinsukia superintendent of police Mugdhajyoti Mahanta. “We have been able to confirm that he (Munna Baruah) has joined ULFA (I). He left for Myanmar through Mon in Nagaland,” he added.
ULFA(I) is part of United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia, which includes insurgent groups from Manipur and Nagaland. It operates out of camps in Myanmar.
Munna Baruah, an electrical engineering diploma holder, worked as an apprentice at the Digboi Oil Refinery.
Pallab Bhattacharyya, a director general with the Assam police’s intelligence wing, warned the push for the bill has given a “fresh lease of life” to ULFA. He called it is a “big contributing factor for the dissatisfaction among Assamese”. “We should be very careful in going ahead with it,” he said.
Indigenous Assamese organisations have been opposing the bill while Assam’s Bengali groups back it. The bill proposes to grant citizenship to religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The indigenous groups feel the proposed law will marginalise them further by encouraging more migrations of the Hindus from neighbouring Bangladesh.
An agitation against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants had ended in 1985 with the Assam Accord, which sought to detect and deport them. The ongoing exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is being done for the purpose.
Bhattacharyya said as many as 11 people have joined the ULFA (I) since September 2018 while the police have dissuaded another 11.