‘Barua death penalty won’t weaken ULFA (I)’

 

 

Experts on the north-east say the death sentence awarded to United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) chief Paresh Barua and 13 others will have little impact on the outfit as both Barua and most of his cadres have already shifted base out of Bangladesh, reports The Hindu.

They were handed the death penalty by a special court in Chittagong on Thursday for smuggling 10 truck loads of arms into Bangladesh in 2004, according to UNB.

Intelligence officials in the State, however, feel that the elusive insurgent leader will be under pressure to come forward for talks should Myanmar act on the lines of Bangladesh and evict insurgents from north-east, including Barua and his cadres, from its soil. The Assam police have intelligence inputs that Barua is currently operating out of his base along Myanmar-China border.

The seized consignment included 4,930 sophisticated firearms of different types, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 27,020 grenades, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11.41 million bullets.

R.N. Ravi, an expert on the north-east, who earlier served with the Intelligence Bureau, said the Bangladesh court sentence would not have any direct impact on Barua, except a psychological impact on those cadres who are still staying in the neighbouring country.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s security adviser G.M. Srivastava said: “This will tell the people of Assam that what Barua is doing is arms smuggling and not what he claims to be doing — fighting for Assam’s sovereignty. Personally I would like to have him here in Assam to carry forward the peace process with the ULFA. Barua should now realise that the time has come to change his attitude and he should come back home to sit for talks with the government,” Mr. Srivasatva said.