Paresh Baruah should return with due respect, says brother Bikul Baruah

Jeraigaon (Assam): ULFA (Independent) leader Paresh Baruah should return home with 'due respect and not without realising his goals and aspirations for the people of Assam', his brother Bikul Baruah said.

"He has a goal, we do not agree with it but he has spent nearly 45 years pursuing it. We want him to come home but he should not return empty-handed without achieving what he aspired for the people", Bikul Baruah told PTI in an interview at the family home here under Dibrugarh Lok Sabha constituency.

Asked about the pro-talk ULFA faction's accord with the government, the ULFA(I) chief's youngest sibling said, "We do not want him to come back with just a rehabilitation package like his earlier comrades have done".

"The accord signed is not in the interest of the people of the state and even the common people are aware that it has been for their personal interest. The leaders of the pro-talk faction are facing so much criticism and they have not been able to keep their stand before the people and the Assamese society", he claimed.

Thousands of people have lost their lives during the decades-long ULFA issue but 'these leaders accepted just a package. If they had to accept only this, it could have been done much earlier and many lives would have been saved. Was the package the aim of their so-called movement', Baruah asked.

Paresh Baruah is 'answerable to the people of the state as so many people have died and there must be some return for their blood', Bikul Baruah said.

A tripartite agreement was signed between the pro-talk ULFA, central and state government in December last year and subsequently, this faction was disbanded in January.

Paresh Baruah's aspirations for the people of Assam is 'different from ours but the ULFA leaders had given the government certain demands. It is the people's right to make a demand and the government's to consider it', he said, sitting below a framed picture of his elder brother.

"A give and take policy should be followed by both sides to arrive at a solution which is in the interest of the people of Assam and just not a package for personal interest", he added.

"We want dialogue, negotiations must take place and a solution must be arrived at which will be long-standing and in the best interest of the people and the state", the teacher at the primary school, where the senior Baruah had studied, said.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has taken the initiative for dialogue since assuming office and has said several times in the media that the channel for communication with Paresh Barua is open, he said.

"Our brother has also responded positively, there is peace in the state now and we are also hopeful of a solution", he added.

"The peace process, however, should not be hurried and all aspects must be taken into account in the interest of the state and its people", Baruah said.

The ULFA(I) chief's primary demand is Assam's 'sovereignty' which Sarma had said he cannot discuss as a chief minister, having taken the oath of office on the country's constitution.

Baruah had left home in 1979 when the younger sibling was a student of Class 8 and the latter has fond memories of his football-playing elder brother taking him to several matches played at different parts of Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts as a railway employee.

"It has been a long time since he left home and since then my parents have died and my elder brother Dinesh Baruah was killed in 1994. We have no contact with him and this is painful", he said.

Baruah's mother Miliki Baruah during her lifetime had issued media statements calling for peace and dialogue but 'she died with the unfulfilled wish of seeing her son (Paresh Baruah) again'.

"We have suffered a lot of pain and harassment over the years but we have accepted it as a part of our lives", he added.

The school teacher of Jerai Chokoli Bhoria Primary School, established in 1940, also gave a tour of the school where the ULFA(I) chief had initially studied and his name is still there in the admission register with his date of birth as April 15, 1957, and the date of admission as February 2, 1962.