ULFA guru surrenders, preaches peace

Lt Gen Mohiner Singh, GOC of the IV Corps here, however, failed to confirm when Buragohain was captured by the Bhutan Army.

Popularly known as Mama among the ULFA cadres, Buragohain and three others were today brought in front of mediapersons at the IV Corps HQ. The ULFA leader read out a statement wherein he said the path chosen by the ULFA was wrong and that the outfit should declare a ceasefire and come forward for negotiations.

‘‘I appeal to all ULFA cadres and members to lay down their arms because the path which we have led is wrong. Peace does not come through a gun barrel, but through negotiations. Both sides should come to a ceasefire and an understanding with the Government of India, start negotiations and resolve the issue,’’ he said in the statement.

The three who surrendered along with Buragohain have been identified as self-styled Major Robin Handique, SS Major Amarjit Gogoi and Bolin Das. Of them Handique, is the newly-appointed political advisor of ULFA. Gogoi, a doctor, looks after the medical services in the outfit’s Bhutan camps.

Buragohain, who has been with the outfit since its inception in 1978, spent two years in its camps in Myanmar and has been in Bhutan since 1998.

The Army today created a lot of confusion and antagonised the media by first not allowing Buragohain to reply to the their queries and issuing a statement saying: ‘‘The surrendered had an informal interaction with the media and answered all their queries.’’ Also, the media was informed that the surrender would take place at 3:30 pm today but the deed was over by 3 pm, even before half the mediapersons from Guwahati and those from Tezpur arrived.

When asked why this was done, Lt Gen Singh said he was not bound to let Buragohain take questions from the media. When asked why the function was over much before the scheduled time, the GOC refused to comment.

Meanwhile, the police custody of ULFA’s publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary was extended by seven days. Daimary had been sent to five days police custody on December 21.