Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday handed over fixed deposit certificates of Rs four lakh each to as many as 852 former United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) cadres as financial grant in a ceremony held at the Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra in state capital Guwahati. The fixed deposit certificate of Rs four lakh was given under the Central government’s Surrender-cum-Rehabilitation policy. In addition, the Assam government provided a sum of Rs three lakh each to the former militants as a special package.


Moreover, the Assam government provided Rs three lakh each to 45 people injured in different counter insurgency operations, Rs five lakh each to eight oppressed individuals, and Rs 10 lakh each to the next of kin of 31 missing ULFA cadres. With this, a total of 936 people received financial grants for rehabilitation.


Speaking to ABP Live, former general secretary of the ULFA Golap Baruah alias Anup Chetia, said, “I thank and express my gratitude to Chief Minister Sarma for taking the initiative and extending financial support to our former cadres in such a short time. I also thank him for providing financial aid to the families of those missing on humanitarian grounds. No other Chief Ministers of the state ever took such a bold effort. We all would be grateful to the government, especially Chief Minister Sarma.”


The ULFA, with an objective of seeking to establish an independent sovereign nation state of Assam for the indigenous Assamese people through armed struggle, was founded on 7 April 1979 at the historic Ahom era amphitheatre Rang Ghar, situated in Assam’s Sivasagar district. The outfit was banned by the Union government in 1990 citing it as a terrorist organisation. The banned organisation split into two groups in February 2011. While the group led by its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa decided to shun violence and sit for talks with the government, the other group led by its commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah was against talks and rebranded itself as the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I).


The pro-talks faction of the ULFA disbanded itself and vacated their designated camps on January 23 this year after it signed a tripartite Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) with the Union and the Assam government in New Delhi on December 29, 2023. 


The writer is a senior independent journalist covering the Northeast.


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