ULFA rejects peace talks with government from jail

GUWAHATI - Outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom’s (ULFA) chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa Tuesday rejected Home Minister P.Chidambaram’s offer for peace talks, saying “there can be no talks while in custody”.

“Question of writing a formal letter for beginning peace talks from inside the jail and with handcuffs on simply does not arise,” Rajkhowa told journalists here.

“There can be no talks while in custody.”

The ULFA chairman, now lodged at the Guwahati Central Jail, was brought to the Regional Dental College here for treating a tooth ailment.

Chidmabaram said Monday the government was ready to hold talks with the jailed ULFA leadership without the presence of the elusive Paresh Baruah, the outfit’s self-styled commander-in-chief.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said unless the ULFA leaders express their willingness for talks in writing, no negotiations would take place.

“They must give in writing, otherwise how can talk begin,” he told journalists.

Almost the entire top brass of the ULFA is now in jail - Rajkhowa, vice chairman Pradeep Gogoi, deputy commander-in-chief Raju Baruah, “foreign secretary” Sasha Chouhdury, “finance secretary” Chitraban Hazarika, publicity chief Mithinga Daimary, cultural secretary Pranati Deka, and senior-most leader Bhimkanta Buragohain.

Buragohain, 70, is presently lodged at the Tezpur jail in northern Assam, while the other seven rebel leaders are at the Guwahati Central Jail.

The only top leader of the ULFA still at large is Paresh Baruah, while the outfit’s general secretary Anup Chetia is in a Bangladesh jail following his arrest in 1997.

The jailed ULFA leaders, including Rajkhowa, have been repeatedly saying that they were ready for talks but not in handcuffs.