Guwahati, July 13: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today said he was “pained” by the death of P.C. Ram, the executive director of the FCI’s regional office.

The AGP, however, was in no mood to “forgive” the Gogoi government for missing the opportunity to rescue Ram. It rushed a 12-member delegation, led by president Brindaban Goswami, to New Delhi to discuss with its allies a nationwide campaign against the “deliberate killing” by Dispur.

Ram was killed during an encounter between police and Ulfa at Paschim Borka village, 30 km from the Assam capital, in Kamrup district on Wednesday night.

His body was today taken from the Guwahati Neurological Research Centre, where it had been kept after post-mortem, to the FCI’s regional head-office in Ulubari where his colleagues paid their last respects.

Gogoi spoke to Ram’s son Pravin before the latter flew back to Delhi with his father’s mortal remains. “I am deeply pained by his (P.C. Ram’s) demise and do not have appropriate words to describe my grief,” Gogoi’s media adviser Debo Kumar Bora quoted the chief minister as having said.

Revenue minister Bhumidhar Barman paid floral tributes to Ram at the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport on behalf of the chief minister.

All set to whip up the issue into a movement, the AGP said Ram’s killing was another instance of the government’s “callousness and insensitivity” towards human lives.

AGP spokesperson Apurba Kumar Bhattacharya said party delegates would meet TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu, Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, ADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa, Haryana Bikash Party leader Om Prakash Chautala, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and JMM leader Babulal Marandi in Delhi.

They will also call on home minister Shivraj Patil to demand dismissal of the state government for its failure on “all fronts”.

The AGP will observe a 30-hour hungerstrike on Tuesday against the deterioration in law and order and the government’s failure to protect its land from encroachment.

The Trinamul Gana Parishad has also called for a statewide “remove-Gogoi movement.”

Its general secretary, Atul Bora, said the government had lost all rights to continue in power.

An AGP legislator, however, said Ram’s death and the recent flare-up along the state’s boundaries had given Goswami a good opportunity to galvanise the party into action.