A commission which probed the alleged “secret killings” of family members of top ULFA leaders has given a clean chit to the then AGP government led by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.The Justice (Retd) J.N. Sharma Commission, which submitted its report to the government two days ago, does not name any politician, minister or official, saying none of the witnesses could produce any “substantial” evidence.In the killing of four family members of ULFA spokesman Mithinga Daimary, the report says, “None of the 17 witnesses who deposed before the commission could provide anything substantial.” Daimary’s family members were killed in Barama village of Nalbari district on August 11, 1998.In the case of murder of Guwahati University employee Jyotish Sharma in 2000, the commission said Sharma was a victim of rivalry between two groups of ULFA. Jyotish Sharma was the brother-in-law of Subhash Sharma, a dreaded ULFA militant. The commission, however, blamed two surrendered ULFA militants for the disappearance of Rajesh Misra and Rajiv Koch of Tezpur in 1999.The commission has also given a clean chit to Prafulla Kumar Mahanta saying there was no lapse on the part of the police or the administration in connection with the cases it investigated.The killings were one of the major issues the Congress had used to defeat the AGP in the 2001 polls. The AGP’s present leadership also accuses Mahanta of ordering the killings, saying it was one of the major reasons the party lost the polls.
