GUWAHATI, Dec 17 ? There are reasons to believe that the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is totally under the influence of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today. He also alleged that the ULFA was not sincere on the issue of talks with the Government.
Addressing a press conference here today, Gogoi called upon the ULFA to come out of the grip of foreign agencies and come to the negotiation table for peaceful solution of their problems. He admitted that the Government does not have conclusive evidence of the ULFA working under the influence of the ISI, but the actions of the militant outfit gave the security agencies enough reasons to believe the influence of the Pakistani agency on the outfit.
Commenting on the recent spurt of violence, Gogoi said that the Government is very much concerned with the incidents and asserted that the Government would deal with any kind of violence firmly. He said that despite the blasts, the ULFA failed to terrorise the people of the State. He expressed the view that the militant outfit has totally lost the support of the masses and that is why they have resorted to senseless violence to terrorise the people. He also revealed that the ULFA has changed its tactics and in some cases, the militant outfit even engaged others to plant bombs by giving money, thereby making the task of the security forces more difficult.
Replying to a question on whether the incidents took place because of intelligence failure, the Chief Minister said that because of the intelligence inputs, the security forces could prevent several attempts of the militants to create terror. He said that the militant outfit was planning to create disturbance all over the State, but because of intelligence inputs, several attempts of the militants could be foiled.
He, however, did not rule out the possibility of lapses on the part of police and said that he would personally review all the recent acts of violence to examine whether there was any security lapse. He also said that some complacency might have crept in the minds of the security forces in view of the recent statements of the ULFA leaders where they spoke about talks.
The Chief Minister admitted that the forces available with the Government were not adequate to deal with the situation. He said that the Government of India authorised the State Government to raise additional India Reserve Battalions to deal with the situation, but the Centre is ready to provide only Rs 13 crore to raise the same, while, an amount of Rs 39 crore would be required for the same.
He said that the State Government would also have to bear the recurring expenditure of the force. He said that he has already taken up the matter with the Centre with the demand for providing funds for the raising of the force. He informed newspersons that court cases delayed the process of filling up of the vacant posts in the Police Department and now the Government has initiated the process of recruiting about 4500 policemen, which would improve the functioning of the force. He lauded the State police force and said that it was doing a good job despite the constraints. There is urgent need for modernising the police force and creating new police stations, he added.
Stressing the need for coordination between the police forces of the north eastern states to deal with insurgency, the Chief Minister said that he has not received any proposal from the Centre for creating a Unified Command for the entire region. He also expressed the view that a Unified Command for the region might create problem for the states and ? we should not comment on that without thoroughly going through the details only on the basis of newspaper reports.? The Chief Minister also announced that the Government would hold peace rallies in all the districts of the State on December 21 to mobilise public opinion against violence.