Centre ready for talks with ULFA sans conditions: official

GUWAHATI, January 17: The Centre is ready to hold talks with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) on any issue without any preconditions, according to Gopal Krishna Pillai, Joint Secretary in charge of the Northeast in the Union Home Ministry. Pillai, who is on a tour of the region, said the Centre had sent feelers to the ULFA leadership on several occasions to come forward for talks, but it had not received any positive response so far. ULFAs Commander-in-ChiefParesh Baruas recent offer for holding scientific talkswas only a statement made to a section of the press and the organisation had not sent any feelers to the government in this context, the official said. Usually when militant outfits want to hold talks with the government, they send feelers through different channels instead of going to the press, Pillai pointed out, expressing apprehension that Baruas statement might be a public posturein order to regain lost ground in terms of mass support. The Government, he said, is willing to discuss any issue, even ULFAs demand for sovereignty, as it was confident of convincing ULFA leaders that they had no case in their demand. The Government is even ready to declare a unilateral ceasefire in Assam as has been done in Jammu and Kashmir, but for this the ground has to be prepared first. ULFA has not given any positive indication in this regard,he said. The official claimed that Paresh Barua and Ranjan Daimary, Chairman of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), had invested hundreds of crores of rupees extorted from Assam in various businesses in Bangladesh. The leaders of these two banned outfits and their wives are now privileged citizens of Bangladesh and the authorities of that country regarded them as foreign investorscreating jobs for their unemployed people. Paresh Barua is at present in Karachi, he said. Regarding the recent spate of killings of close relatives of top ULFA militants by so-called secret killers, Pillai said, Government of India does not believe that killing relatives of militants will have any impact on the outfit. Somebody among the surrendered ULFA men may be doing so to settle scores with the ULFA, but the Government does not gain anything by it. Government would rather prefer to appeal to the militants to shun violence and come overground. The Government would advise surrendered ULFA men to stop all such killings if they are involved as this would only make the situation worse.