Guwahati, July 22: The arrest of Bhaskar Rajbongshi, a member of the pro-talks group of Ulfa, by the CBI in connection with the P.C. Ram abduction and killing case has pushed the peace process into an abyss and angered the peaceniks.
“All the cadres in our group have cases pending against them... will all of them, including us, be arrested? Our cadres are totally demoralised now,” Mrinal Hazarika, a leader of the pro-talks group, told The Telegraph today, adding they would take up the matter with the government.
“We have discussed the matter with senior police officials and expressed our resentment,” he said. Rajbongshi was picked up by the CBI from the Nalbari designated camp of the pro-talks group on Friday and formally arrested on Monday.
Maradona Russell, in-charge of the Nalbari camp, said the CBI team informed him that Bhaskar would be taken to Borka village at Changsari as part of the investigation into Ram’s killing.
Police had claimed that Ram died in the crossfire during an encounter between his Ulfa abductors and the police at Borka village in 2007.
“Bhaskar has been picked up several times earlier by the CBI for questioning in Ram’s case and he has been providing full support, but it was very unfortunate that he was arrested,” Maradona said.
Echoing Maradona, Hazarika said if Bhaskar had “wrong intentions”, he would not have helped the CBI with the investigations. Hazarika said many cadres of the pro-talks group have started questioning their future after the arrest of Bhaskar and “we have no answers for them”.
Almost all the cadres stationed in three designated camps of the pro-talks group have police cases pending against them. Hazarika said it was very unfortunate that there was no response from the state government on their demands though it was more than a year since they declared a ceasefire.
“Apart from paying Rs 13 lakh every month for buying essential commodities for our cadres at the camps, the government has done nothing to carry ahead the peace process,” he said.
The pro-talks group, he said, is thinking of approaching New Delhi directly if there was no response from the state government within the next few weeks. “We don’t want to end up like a group of surrendered militants,” he said.
