Ulfa general secretary Anup Chetia has arrived in his native home in Jeraigaon in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district on Saturday and apologised to the people of Assam for the infamous Dhemaji blast, a blast triggered by the Ulfa cadres at Dhemaji in 2004 that led to killing of 10 schoolchildren and three women.
“I am sorry that innocent lives were lost in the incident. I don’t know the individuals who had triggered the explosion but what I know is that the target was not the children and women but the security forces,” Chetia said while interacting with people and newsmen on way to his native village.
The Dhemaji blast is one of the major attacks of the Ulfa, where the cadres of the outfit had triggered a bomb blast at the Independence Day parade ground in upper Assam’s Dhemaji town in which 13 people, including 10 children and three women, were killed on August 15, 2004. The incident led to a massive public outrage against the outfit across the state, forcing the outfit to tender an apology in 2009.
“I was in jail in Bangladesh then. But I came to know that the children and women were not the targets,” he said while tendering apology for the infamous incident.
“I am feeling very happy to be in my village. It’s been long years since I have left. Things have changed so much,” said an emotional Chetia after meeting with his bothers at their residence in Jeraigaon. He said that he had left Assam in 1992 and did not get an opportunity to visit since he was arrested in 1997 and jailed subsequently.
He also condemned the recent attacks of the Ulfa on Hindi speaking people and said, “It is wrong to kill the Hindi-speaking people. Everyone knows the contribution of Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and Chandra Kumar Agarwala towards Assam and in enriching Assamese literature.”
The Ulfa general secretary, who had been languishing in Bangladeshi Jail since 1997, was extradited to India last month. On Wednesday he was granted bail by the Gauhati high court barring a few conditions and subsequently he arrived at him home in Jeraigaon today morning.
Chetia has expressed his willingness to sit for the talks with the government of India and said that with due permission from the government of India he would like to meet Paresh Baruah, the leader of anti-talk faction of the outfit, and put in efforts to bring him to the talks table too.
“I have taken Paresh to the Ulfa. He is my cousin brother and neighbor also. It would have been nice if we could have come to the village together,” Chetia told on Friday.