Guwahati, Jan. 5: Less than two weeks after Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi made a case for putting diplomatic pressure on Thimphu to provide information on the missing Ulfa leaders, Gauhati High Court today directed the external affairs ministry to furnish within two weeks a complete list of persons handed over to Indian authorities by the Royal Bhutan Army during Operation All Clear launched in December 2003.
A division bench of Chief Justice B.S. Reddy and Justice B.P. Kotoky issued the order after hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Shyamalee Gogoi alias Jnanama Moran in January last year seeking information on the whereabouts of her husband, Punaram Dihingia alias Prakash Gogoi, an Ulfa activist.
In the petition WP(C) number 70/05, Shyamalee mentioned that she, along with her husband and other senior Ulfa leaders Benning Rabha, Robin Neog and Ashanta Baghphukan, were taken captive by the Royal Bhutan Army on December 18, 2003. They were handed over to the Indian army six days later.
The Ulfa-constituted People?s Consultative Group has also been asking the government to reveal the whereabouts of several Ulfa activists who had gone missing after the Bhutan operations. The Ulfa has said that its central committee members ? Rabha, Neog and Baghphukan ? had gone missing during the operation. The issue remains a major stumbling block in the fledgling peace process between the Centre and the proscribed militant outfit.
The petitioner?s advocate, Bijon Kumar Mahajan and Arshad Choudhury, said the list would end the anxiety and uncertainty faced by the family members of Ulfa rebels, whose fate remained unknown after the Bhutan operations.
Shyamalee had told newsmen that her husband, along with other Ulfa leaders, was kept in a Bhutan army camp in Deochang, opposite to the one where she and other women cadre were lodged.
Secretary of external affairs ministry, secretary of home ministry, government of Assam and GoC, Eastern Command, among others, were made respondents in the case.
Chief adviser of Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti and a member of the PCG, Lachit Bordoloi, said 17 Ulfa rebels and NDFB?s publicity secretary B. Erakdao were missing since the Bhutan operations.
