Pradip Gogoi held for 'plotting' to kill Himanta Biswa Sarma: ULFA leader's arrest ahead of polls shocks Assam

The arrest of ULFA (Pro Talks) vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi alias Samiran Gogoi last Monday on the charge of conspiring to assassinate Assam finance minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma has stunned everybody who knew the rebel leader. He was certainly the most-quiet and amiable among all the leaders in the outfit from both the factions. So, his colleagues in ULFA (Pro Talks) and acquaintances scurried to gather details when the news broke out late on Monday night that Gogoi had been picked up by the police along with two others for allegedly hatching a plot to assassinate the BJP leader. It transpired that Gogoi was conversing on the phone with Manabendra Pathak who hails from Karbi Anglong and is the brother of a BJP leader. Gogoi had supposedly given the nod to Pathak’s plan of assassinating Sarma which swung the police into action. The phones and emails of all the leaders belonging to ULFA (Pro Talks) have been under surveillance for the past many years. A functionary of ULFA (Pro Talks) who did not wish to be named claimed that he had heard the conversation between Gogoi and Pathak which was telecast by some local TV news channels. “All that VC (vice-chairman) did was to say ‘ok’ and nothing else. And that is his habit. He listens attentively to everything and keeps on uttering the same reply,” he said. Apparently, it emerged that Pathak has the habit of making late-night calls to people after allegedly getting drunk. A couple of months ago, a senior rebel functionary from the faction was compelled to warn him to stop making further calls after he began uttering his intent to “kill high-profile people”. Subsequently, he blocked Pathak’s number when he refused to heed the warning. Several theories are doing the rounds among the government and media circles in Guwahati on the reasons that might have motivated the Assam Police to arrest Gogoi. First, the incident happened just before the Assembly elections in Assam. Unravelling a plot to kill the most popular BJP leader in the state will certainly not harm the ruling party’s prospects in the polls. Moreover, the BJP and its allies are not very comfortable at several constituencies in the western region of Assam where the Congress-led Mahajath or Grand Alliance appears to be gaining ground. Secondly, some reports in the media claimed that the intelligence had received information that the ULFA (Independent) was planning to launch attacks ahead of the elections. So, the police cracked the whip as soon as it gathered evidence about the plot to kill Sarma. ULFA (I) has been known for its opposition to the BJP and its policies for the past several years. Its diminishing strength notwithstanding, the faction has always been on the lookout for opportunities to carry out strikes in the state. Reports about the outfit’s plans are received by the intelligence at regular intervals from its network of informers which are not always authentic. Gogoi was one of the founder members of ULFA who belonged to the Namrup group in the early 1980s. He is credited to have chosen the name for the organisation, and was among the six functionaries in the first batch that crossed over to Myanmar in 1983 for a pact with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). The squad narrowly escaped from being ambushed by the Myanmar Army before reaching the NSCN’s council headquarters at Challam Basti. He was first arrested in 1987 at Goalpara and then for the second time in 1991 after the Indian Army launched Operation Rhino in Assam only to be released four months later when the first peace process was started. Gogoi was part of the delegation of ULFA leaders headed by general secretary Anup Chetia who met former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in the National Capital for the exercise (peace process) which failed owing to the opposition of the hardliners led by ULFA commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah. Gogoi remained underground until 1998 when he was arrested in Kolkata. He was released in 2011 when another peace initiative between a section of the ULFA and the government began after chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and some other senior leaders were apprehended in Bangladesh and handed over to India. A press release issued by ULFA (Pro Talks) has condemned and expressed shock over Gogoi’s arrest. It warned that the incident could have an adverse impact on the ongoing peace process. The author is a senior journalist in Guwahati