Indian Express, July 6, 2007
Bibhu Prasad Routray
The killing of the abducted Food Corporation of India (FCI) regional director, Phul Chand Ram, has created disquiet within Assam and outside it. Considerable anger has been directed against the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa). Since a considerable amount of money had been handed over to his abductors, many had hoped the outfit would have kept the official alive, hoping for more financial gains. These postulations, however, appeared to ignore the fundamental character of the militant outfit. The outfit’s transformation into a criminal entity has long been completed.
The Ulfa is no stranger to the practice of eliminating its hostages after abduction. On July 9, 1991, Ulfa cadres killed Russian coal expert Sergei Gritchenko, who was working on a project in the state, after he allegedly tried to escape. AVARD (Northeast) general secretary, Sanjay Ghose, was abducted on July 8, 1997, from the world’s largest river island, Majuli, by the Ulfa, which later said that he had fallen off a cliff in Arunachal Pradesh. These, being high profile cases, received considerable media attention.
However, abduction as a strategy to put pressure on the state and its agencies or even to extract financial benefits is somewhat on the decline in the Northeast. Tripura, which a few years back was known as the abduction centre of the Northeast, records only a handful of such cases. Similarly, cases of abduction in Assam have declined since 2001. Compared to 82, 97 and 89 abductions in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively, only 27 such cases took place in 2004. In recent years fringe tribal outfits, rather than the Ulfa, have been responsible for most of the abductions. The reasons for the decline in abductions could be many. One, media focus on them brings negative publicity. Two, a wide-ranging undisrupted extortion network has made abduction and subsequent ransom demands less attractive.
The initial demand of Rs 21 crore for Ram’s release by Ulfa was a bit staggering. The sum was, arguably, the maximum demanded for the release of a single person by any militant outfit in the Northeast. The demand was reportedly brought down to Rs 3 crore, of which Rs 12 lakh were paid. However, it would be erroneous to imagine that Ram was killed because more money did not change hands. There are ample indications that the outfit wanted to use Ram as a bargaining chip. It linked the release of Ram with that of its jailed leaders in one of the issues of its mouthpiece, Freedom. Since, in reality, such a hope bore little chance of success, Ram’s killing had become necessary to send a message across to the powers that be. Periodic strikes by the Ulfa have all been similar attempts at reinventing itself, not only in the eyes of its own cadres, but also among people who have written it off. But such measures have also been carefully blended with a policy of denial. While the Ulfa has a practice of not owning up to civilian deaths, this time around a statement expressing its willingness to start a process dialogue with the government followed the discovery of Ram’s body. The move was obviously aimed at diverting attention from the killing.
Ram’s murder also raised several questions about the competence of the Assam police. Not only did the police have almost two and a half months between the day of abduction and his possible killing, it also appeared to have failed miserably to take action on the available information that Ram was being confined to Baska district, one of the smallest in Assam, on the Bhutan border. Ram’s body was dug out of a pit there.The primacy of the hostage’s safety is said to have been the reason behind the police avoiding harsh measures. It is doubtful that the police at any point had come anywhere close to rescuing Ram. Police officials spoke openly to the media about how they had almost nabbed his abductors. It is unimaginable how operational details could be wilfully disclosed in this fashion, stripping such operations of their vital element of surprise.
Ram’s death, in spite of the anger and frustration it has evoked, will not snowball into a movement against the Ulfa. As many as 156 civilians have already been killed this year in Assam in terrorist violence and there is little hope that Ram’s case will be remembered. Anger against the outfit has always been short-lived here, mostly because certain power centres in the state have been able to advocate their cause rather successfully. To them, killings, abductions, extortion by the outfit — while avoidable — still represent the means to coerce New Delhi into listening.
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