'Reports aimed at derailing peace'
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Agency
New Delhi, December 03 2009:
ULFA Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa has indicated that the banned militant outfit is ready for peace talks.
"I want to clear my stand that I still stand for the cause of the Assamese people.
We are against the domination of Assamese community by mainstream India.
"We do not want our revolution to end but there should be a peaceful solution to it, preferably in a constitutional way.
I want peace talks to restart and conclude...That is why I have come forward to carry on my agenda," he was quoted as having told North East TV channel.
He claimed today that reports of his "arrest" were aimed at creating confusion and "derailing" the peace process in Assam.
"I am speaking to you from the same location in Bangladesh from where I normally speak from.
Those who say that I have been arrested are deliberately trying to create confusion.
They want to derail the peace process in Assam even before it can begin," he told North East TV channel.
53-year-old Rajkhowa said, "They (people opposing him) don't want a political and peaceful solution to the problem.
Such people don't want to take the peace process to success.
Every time we want to take the peace process forward such people spread wrong information".
Conflicting reports on the Ulfa leader's arrest had appeared on Wednesday.
Intelligence sources had said that Rajkhowa had surrendered to Indian security forces in Agartala and taken to New Delhi by a flight from the Tripura capital late last evening.
Top government sources in New Delhi had said that Rajkhowa was picked up by sleuths of Bangladeshi security agencies and kept in a secured location in Dhaka.
National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said earlier in the day that if at all Rajkhowa is arrested, he would probably surrender first.