Ulfa leaders, cadres pose for photographs after it was disbanded on Tuesday (January 23) in Darrang district.
Credit: Ulfa
Guwahati: Insurgent group Ulfa was formally disbanded on Tuesday, 44 years after it was formed with "sovereign Assam" as its dream and days after it signed a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) with the government.
The decision to disband the banned outfit was taken at its last "General Council" meeting at Chamuapara village in North Assam's Darrang district, where 65 cadres of the outfit are lodged in a designated camp.
"It is an emotional and painful moment for all of us today. The organisation which we gave birth to way back in 1979 had to be disbanded like this today without attaining the objective. We failed in our armed fight due to circumstances but we had no option but to accept whatever we could get for the people by signing the agreement with the government," Anup Chetia, one of the founders of Ulfa, told DH over phone on Tuesday.
Chetia alias Golap Baruah was jailed for years in Bangladesh and was handed over to India in 2015. Ulfa joined the peace talks in 2011, months after several other top leaders, including Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, "deputy-military-chief" Raju Baruah, "foreign secretary" Sasha Choudhury and "finance secretary" Chitraban Hazarika were also nabbed in Bangladesh and handed over to India in 2010. Before that, an operation carried out in Bhutan in 2003 "flushed out" its camps, giving a blow to the armed outfit.
Ulfa, however, split into two groups in 2011 with another group led by Paresh Baruah naming it as Ulfa-Independent. The Baruah faction has still remained out of the peace process.
With their hideouts in neighbouring Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, Ulfa carried out large-scale violence including bomb blasts, abduction and extortions across Assam resulting in deaths and destruction. Chetia said 2,335 cadres and leaders of Ulfa also died during "armed fight" against the government.
The agreement:
Major highlights of the agreement Ulfa signed with the government on December 29, 2023 was a promise to protect 97 out of the 126 Assembly seats in Assam for the indigenous people and Constitutional safeguards to them by protecting land rights and restricting migration of voters from one constituency to another. It also pledged to allot Rs. 1.5 lakh crores for Assam's socio-economic development.
Chetia said a delegation of Ulfa is likely to meet Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday in which a date for formal surrender of the weapons is likely to be taken.
Mission for socio economic activities:
Chetia told DH that the Ulfa cadres and leaders would now embark on a mission for socio-economic development in Assam. "Today we decided to form a new organisation named as Assam Jatiya Vikas Mancha for taking up various activities across Assam in the days to come," he said. A committee for monitoring the activities was also formed with Chetia and Sasha Choudhury as heads.
The Ulfa at present has 726 cadres who are lodged in nine designated camps.
Boycott call by Ulfa-I:
Interestingly, the Ulfa-Independent, the only major insurgent group out of peace in Assam now, on Tuesday issued its customary call to boycott the Republic Day celebrations on January 26. The boycott call, which coincided with the disbanding of Ulfa, was issued along with Naga insurgent group NSCN.
The Ulfa-Independent is still unwilling to join peace talks without discussion on Ulfa's "core demand of sovereign Assam." Baruah is believed to be taking shelter somewhere along the Myanmar-China border with nearly 300 cadres. Security experts believe China is backing the Baruah group.