We cannot ignore the fact that the Ulfa leadership lives in Bangladesh. A tense Bangladesh braces for general elections later this month. What is Ulfa’s future if turmoil continues in Bangladesh, given the support it has reportedly received from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the army and intelligence agencies? That remains a crucial question.

We need reminding of Mahatma Gandhi’s advice of December 15, 1946, when he threw his support behind Gopinath Bardoloi and his Congress team. At the time Assam faced the threat of being pushed into a constitutional bind that would have seen its domination by Bengal and subsequent absorption by East Pakistan: “If Assam keeps quiet, it is finished... Assam must not lose its soul.” The Northeast, rich in natural resources, is at the bottom of India’s economic heap because of poor governance and an unending spiral of confrontation. The latest bout of killings does not anger as much as it sickens and saddens me.

The writer is a consulting editor at ‘The Statesman’ and with the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research