Guwahati/New Delhi, Sept. 14: The fledgling peace process between the Ulfa and the Centre ran into rough weather today with the People’s Consultative Group, set up by the banned outfit, threatening to pull out if the army did not stop its “unprovoked and unwarranted” operations against the militants.

The Ulfa leadership complained of army aggression in and around the Dibru-Saikhowa forest and threatened a rethink on the peace process. It said in a statement to the media that 12 members had been killed in the operation.

Writer Mamoni Raisom Goswami, who has been mediating between the Ulfa and the government in Delhi, said the peace process would collapse if the counter-insurgency operation continued. She apprised the Prime Minister’s office of the threat.

In Guwahati, the Ulfa-constituted team of negotiators hurriedly convened a news conference to say the government’s strategy of going after militants, even as it tries to start a dialogue with their leaders, would never succeed.

Five of the nine members of the consultative group ? their brief is to do the spadework for the Ulfa’s talks with Delhi ? said they would pull out of the process if the government persisted with its operations.

“In the name of counter-insurgency operations, the armed forces, with the aid and assistance of the state police administration, have kept a large number of villages under siege. According to information received by us, apart from killing Ulfa cadre, the purported operation has resulted in deliberate killing of civilians in these areas. The operations have also endangered the bio-diversity of the area,” the group said in a statement later.

Lachit Bordoloi, Arup Borbora, Dilip Patgiri, Haidor Hussain and Hiranya Saikia signed the statement.