44 years after its founding, ULFA dissolved due to an agreement with the government

A top leader of the pro-talk ULFA said that the group has officially dissolved 44 years after it was founded. The group had inked a tripartite agreement on December 29 of last year.

A provision of the agreement is that ULFA must reject the use of violence, surrender all weapons and ammunition, and dissolve the group within 30 days.

The ULFA, the federal government, and the state governments all signed the tripartite pact.

Anup Chetia, the group’s general secretary, told PTI that the decision to dissolve the organization was made at a meeting that was held on Tuesday in the Darrang area of Assam.

According to him, the tripartite agreement’s different terms were resolved to be implemented via the formation of a seven-member monitoring committee at the meeting.

The committee’s convenor will be Chetia.

He claimed that ‘Asom Jatiya Bikash Mancha’, a socio-cultural organization, would be established with the aim of safeguarding the language and cultural identity of the community.

According to Chetia, the members will also shortly meet with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to discuss the agreement’s execution as well as to tell him that the group is disbanding.

At the conference, a potential organizational structure for the cadres’ rehabilitation and their involvement in profitable business ventures was also discussed, according to Mrinal Hazarika, a senior official.

Additionally, after visiting for negotiations in 2011, the group was required to leave all nine of the authorized sites where ULFA cadres and their families were lodging.

Later this month, there will be an official ceremony to transfer the weapons and ammunition to the state administration.

Ex-gratia payments to the cadres, funding for their economic and vocational training, and the withdrawal of criminal cases against them for less serious offenses were all included in the agreement, which was signed in New Delhi with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in attendance.

A group of twenty teenagers from Upper Assam districts came together to organize the ULFA on April 7, 1979, in Sivasagar, with the goal of using violent resistance to build an independent Assam. The group broke apart in 2011 when its leaders, led by Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, returned to Assam from a neighboring nation, agreed to have talks without bringing up the issue of sovereignty, and presented the central government with a 12-point demand charter.

Paresh Barua’s ULFA (Independent) group has not yet shown up for negotiations while remaining steadfast in their desire for statehood.