Bangkok flight: Fear of N-E ultras grounds most VIPs

The North-Eastern region today found a place on the international aviation map with the first Air India flight formally taking off from here for the Thailand capital city of Bangkok.

While Air India had invited Chief Ministers of all the seven states of the region for the maiden flight, all of them except Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Mukut Mithi had to decline after they were told by the PMO to consider the security aspect. Bangkok happens to be where top leaders of at least two insurgent groups, the NSCN(IM) and ULFA, have been living. ‘‘Several Chief Ministers of the region were supposed to have taken this flight. But since there is a security risk taking all of them at the same time, we have decided to fly them later,’’ Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaj Hussain said.

But a host of MPs from the region, including North-East MPs’ Forum president P.R. Kyndiah and secretary Arun Sharma, were among the Air India guests, apart from three Guwahati-based newspaper editors and author Arup Kumar Dutta. Inaugurating the first flight, Hussain said the government had already chalked out a long-term plan to make Guwahati a major hub for international airlines linking the region with other South-East Asian capitals.

‘‘Assam — and the North-East — is definitely going to get a big boost especially on the tourism front,’’ Hussain said. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said Guwahati should be soon directly linked to Tokyo, Singapore and other destinations.