Social worker Suchibrata Roy Choudhury speaks to wives of Ulfa militants in the city on Monday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, March 26: After Irom Sharmila in Manipur, it is time for the fasting wives of Ulfa militants in Assam to say “Dilli chalo”.

Frustrated by the government’s response — or the lack of it — to their indefinite hungerstrike since Wednesday, wives of the Ulfa leaders who went missing during Operation All Clear in Bhutan three years ago have decided to shift their protest to the capital.

“The government’s passivity has shocked us. No representative of Dispur has come to see them, which is totally undemocratic,” Syed Nurur Rehman, one of the working presidents of the Nagarik Santi Manch, told the media today.

The Nagarik Santi Mancha is a forum of prominent citizens, including writer Mamoni Raisom Goswami, and one of the many organisations backing the campaign started by wives of missing Ulfa militants. Apart from demanding information about the whereabouts of their husbands, the fasting women are pressuring Delhi to resume the peace process with Ulfa.

Sharmila, who has set a record of sorts by being on intermittent fast since November 2000, was in New Delhi for a few months to tell the Centre that human rights abuses continue in Manipur under the cover of counter-insurgency operations and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

Rehman said denying the wives of missing Ulfa militants information about their husbands was a breach of rights, too. “They have a constitutional right to know the whereabouts of their husbands. Security was provided (to the fasting women) only last night at the insistence of Mamoni Raisom Goswami. The government will be held responsible if anything untoward happens to these women,” he added.

The Nagarik Santi Mancha is collecting signatures in support of the campaign. The signatures will be sent to the United Nations.

Gauhati High Court, where a case filed by the fasting women is pending judgment, has asked Delhi and Dispur to make detailed submissions on March 30.

The government, on the other hand, informed the Assembly today that a four-pronged strategy was being employed to deal with militancy in the state. The strategy entails encouraging disgruntled militants to surrender and psychological operations against armed outfits.

Forest and environment minister Rockybul Hussain made the statement while replying to a question on behalf of chief minister Tarun Gogoi, who holds the home portfolio.

He said increased awareness about the futility of violent methods, such as those adopted by Ulfa, and political dialogue were the only antidotes to militancy.

The minister claimed that the deadlock in negotiations with the Ulfa-constituted People’s Consultative Group, a team of mediators, did not mean that the process itself had been abandoned.