Octogenarian Suren Baruah could not believe his ears when he heard that one of the two young cousins who took football lessons from him before they went underground with a call for “Sovereign Assam” was returning home, a news for which he waited for over three decades.
Founder General Secretary of Ulfa Anup Chetia alias Golap Baruah was extradited from Bangladesh to India on Wednesday.
“We are excited. This is like a dream come true. But we have bot been officially informed as of now. Earlier, on several occasions, rumours were spread in media about his coming back. So, initially we could not believe but now that the Centre has made it clear, it seems the news is true. We want him back and we also want him to lead the Ulfa peace process,” Suren Baruah, who is Chetia’s elder brother, told Deccan herald over telephone from Jeraigaon, a sleepy village surrounded by lush green teagardens in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district.
It was way back in 1979 that Chetia roped in his cousin Paresh Barua to go underground and raise Ulfa. Houses of Chetia and Paresh Barua were right next to each other in Jeraigaon, a village which has seen massive Army crackdown in the 90s in search of the elusive cousins who had by then turned entire Upper Assam into a Ulfa stronghold.
“I wish if Golap joins the peace process, he will reach out to Paresh to come over ground. When they went underground, there was a political situation that resulted in such an uprising,” Baruah added.
Published 11 November 2015, 19:02 IST