[Assam] Of Talks and Amnesty - Sentinel editorial

[Ram Sarangapani]

Here is one editorial from the Sentinel. The highlights are mine.

If the parents/relatives of those killed can be believed, this is just
horrible.

Of course, there are no photos (like the Outlook India article on Maoists),
but hopefully netters can get the picture.

I am not sure what makes some think that these leaders ought to be released,
escape prosecution, and elevated as heroes coming home after a hard fought
battle!

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Of Talks and Amnesty

At a time when initiatives for peace talks with the ULFA are gaining
momentum and the Congress is keen to ensure that the talks take place before
the coming Assembly elections in Assam, families of those killed by the ULFA
— sometimes in the most brutal manner — are naturally raising their voices
against any kind of negotiation that will let the killers of the outfit go
scot-free in some kind of a general amnesty that the late Hiteswar Saikia
had granted against all those in the outfit with criminal cases like murder
against their names who offered to ‘surrender’. This raises a very basic
question: Should a political settlement mean that those affected by the
criminal elements in the outfit — through the unwarranted killing of their
kith and kin — be completely denied justice and a fair punishment of the
killers just because there has been a political settlement? This would be
akin to a government abdicating its power to govern and to deliver justice
to the aggrieved. This would be an acceptance of the government’s impotence
to deliver justice even in the face of the most brutal and inhuman acts of
killing. On Monday, some of the families of those killed by the ULFA got
together at Guwahati to oppose the withdrawal of cases against leaders and
rebels of the outfit as has been demanded by an umbrella organization of
former ULFA militants. And all that the kin of those killed were demanding
was that if you have a government it cannot find any excuse for not
punishing those involved in killings and/or the leaders who ordered the
killings. For instance, there was the retired army officer, *Brojen
Hazarika, whose two brothers were killed by the ULFA. The younger brother,
Kumud, was a student leader who was reportedly abducted by the ULFA. He was
asked to join the ULFA. When he refused, they gouged out his eyes and cut
off his ears and other body parts. Soon after, the ULFA also killed Brojen
Hazarika’s elder brother Dugdha, who was a teacher.* Manik Das, a constable
of the Assam Police, was shot dead by the ULFA in 1998 when he was on duty
at the Sarthebari police station. He was the sole provider of his family.
Then there is the case of the well-known journalist Kamala Saikia who was
gunned down by the ULFA on August 9, 1991.  Whether it is Brojen Hazarika,
Manik Das’s widow Manjubala Das or Kamala Saikia’s son Dhananjoy, they all
want the talks to succeed. But they also want punishment for those who
killed their near and dear ones. “We can’t forgive those who curtailed our
right to live as guaranteed by the Constitution.” This was the pledge taken
by members of at least 15 families directly struck by ULFA violence who
assembled in Guwahati on Monday from all over the State. “How can we allow
them to move out without facing trial?” was what they wanted to know.

How is the government going to deal with the ULFA cadres who have killed the
kith and kin of all these families? Are they going to receive no justice at
all in a State and a country where civil elected governments exist? Can all
killers go scot-free merely because they were associated with an outfit that
set out to make Assam free when it was already part of a free country? And
have we learnt no lesson at all from the general amnesty granted by the late
Hiteswar Saikia during his regime? Have we not all had enough of the SULFA
menace in these two decades? Does the government really have to go out of
its way to create yet another Frankenstein’s monster like the SULFA? Does it
have to earn the disgrace of being a government that cannot punish crime
merely because it is dressed up as ‘insurgency’ or ‘revolution’? And does it
have to fail as a government in the process? We have just had a few names of
failed states. Are we so anxious to have our name on that list?