Even as the anti-talk faction of ULFA has issued a clear threat to prime minister Narendra Modi on the eve of his four-day whirlwind tour of four Northeastern states from Saturday, security agencies have seen it as “nothing new” but a ritual intended at extering pressure on the government. Modi will arrive in Guwahati on Saturday afternoon and attend two functions the same day. On Sunday he will address the All-India Conference of DGPs and IGPs as also a BJP party rally before flying off to Imphal (Manipur) to attend the closing function of Sangai Festival. On Monday he will inaugurate the Hornbill Festival in Kohima (Nagaland) and then take off for Agartala to launch the second unit of 726-MW Palatana power project in south Tripura before winding up his tour. ULFA’s anti-talk faction leader and self-styled Major General Paresh Barua has threatened to launch an armed attack the BJP if the Modi government failed to give details about 26 of its leaders and cadres who have remained untraced since Operation All-Clear launched by the Royal Bhutan Army in collaboration with the Indian Army in December 2003. Barua set a deadline of January 10, 2015, after which the ULFA would disrupt the BJP’s meetings aimed at winning the 2016 state assembly elections. The ULFA would make no distinction between “local” and “outside” leaders while disrupting the BJP’s meetings after January 2015, Barua said, warning that the BJP’s state leaders would have to regret if they fail to find out what happened to the 28 ULFA cadres who have remained missing since the 2003 Bhutan operations. “The Narendra Modi government definitely owes an explanation because the Bhutan operations were carried out during the previous NDA regime. We openly demand of the Modi government to give details about the whereabouts of our 26 missing comrades. While the Bhutan government has declared that it had handed over our 168 cadres and officials to India, it is now the duty of the government to tell us what happened to the remaining 26,” Barua in his statement had said. “Modi, who speaks of peace, amity and humanity, has the moral duty to to tell us as successor to the previous NDA government to tell us the truth,” the ULFA leader holed up somewhere in Myanmar, said. He also issued a mild warning to the pro-talk faction of the ULFA led by its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa by saying that they (the Rajkhowa faction) had forgotten about their comrades missing since the Bhutan operations. The Assam Police, which has deployed 35 companies of para-military forces in addition to a back-up by the army to provide fool-proof security to Guwahati in the next two days, however has described Paresh Barua’s threat as routine. “The ULFA’s threat is routine, issued every time a prime minister makes a trip to the state. Moreover, it is also common for ruling parties to get such threats from militants. Whichever party is in power always becomes an enemy of militant groups,” Assam DGP Khagen Sarma said.
