File pictures of Sanjoy Ghose, (below) Arabinda Rajkhowa

Jorhat, May 29: Militant outfit Ulfa has finally said sorry to Sanjoy Ghose’s widow Sumita for killing the social activist, nearly 14 years after the murder that led to widespread outrage.

The public “regret” came from chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa at Bongaon, in Majuli, the same place where Ulfa cadres had abducted the 37-year-old before killing him on July 4, 1997.

“Sanjoy Ghose’s killing was a mistake like many others committed by Ulfa in its decades-long struggle,” Rajkhowa, who is out on bail, told an unscheduled public meeting on Friday. “We publicly apologise for the mistake. I cannot go and meet her (Sumita) directly but I regret deeply the mistake that we committed then.”

Ulfa leaders have admitted earlier, too, that killing the activist was a “mistake”, but this is the first time that the chairman himself has apologised for the murder that caused deep revulsion in both India and abroad.

The apology came two days after the Ulfa leader sought forgiveness for the 2004 Independence Day blast that killed 13 persons, including 10 schoolchildren, in Dhemaji, about 440km from Guwahati.

Sumita, who was in Bikaner, told The Telegraph she was not aware of the apology. “I… do not know what happened in Majuli. I do not know why Arabinda cannot meet me when he is roaming all over the place. Actually, he does not have the courage to face me.”

She, however, said the acknowledgement was at least a beginning, as the outfit had always made conflicting claims, but added that “only the Almighty” had the power to forgive. “I am just a human being and I want justice to be done,” she said.

Two years ago, an Ulfa leader had claimed Ghose was killed by local cadres before the leadership could intervene. “Rajkhowa, who was in Geneva for a UN convention, had sent a message to the local cadres not to harm him but the killing was carried out before it could reach them,” Mrinal Hazarika had said.

On February 5 this year, the pro-talks faction of the Assam outfit had admitted that Ghose’s murder was a “mistake”. The admission had come at a media conference addressed by Ulfa vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi, foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury and publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary in Guwahati.

Bongaon, a nondescript location in east Majuli, a river island in the Brahmaputra, had come under global glare after the murder of the Delhi-based NGO activist, whose roots were in Calcutta. It was back in focus again on Friday after a group of top Ulfa leaders, led by Rajkhowa, arrived from Dhemaji without prior announcement and hastily held the public meeting where they sought forgiveness from Ghose’s wife.

Ghose, general secretary of AVARD-NE (Assam Voluntary Association for Rural Development-Northeast), an NGO working for the development of Majuli, was kidnapped with another activist, Chandan Doley.

Sunil Kaul, an AVARD-NE member, said Ghose was summoned by some Ulfa cadres from Majuli on July 2 on the “pretext” that they had “something important to discuss” with him. “He went to Majuli on July 3 and the next morning he went to Bongaon on a bicycle along with Chandan to meet the Ulfa cadres. He never came back,” Kaul said.

The Ulfa cadres had taken the two in a boat on the Brahmaputra. They freed Doley but killed Ghose. Then they dumped his body into the river from where it was never recovered.

The outfit suspected that Ghose, whose work had made him popular, was working for intelligence agency RAW.

Ulfa had released conflicting reports on Ghose’s death. One report said he had fallen off a cliff and died in Arunachal Pradesh. Another said he fell off the boat and drowned.

The case was handed over to the CBI, which said the Ulfa cadres had dumped Ghose’s body into the Brahmaputra after cutting it into pieces.