GUWAHATE: For the past once week army area commanders have been issuing repeated appeals to the jawans urging them to behave properly during the conduct of ‘Operation Rhino’.
Significantly, these appeals have ‘come in the wake of mounting criticism of the operation and also the demand that chief minister Hiteswar Saikia should step down for his “failure to protect innocent citizens from army harassment”.
A small section of Congress leaders had even gone to Delhi i demand the removal of Saikia.
The word is now being spread that after the November 16 by-elections the central leadership of the Congress would prevail upon Saikia to start a dialogue with ULFA activists
‘While Saikia’s political detractors are demanding suspension of “Operation Rhino’ and a dialogue with the ULFA, they seem to be missing the feet that the chief minister had in July-August shown Keen interest in talks but the militants had failed to respond.
“Operation Rhino” has not made any real headway so far. Though 2343 activists, including 634 “black’ category ones and 516 ‘greys’, have been arrested Sofa, prominent leaders like Arabinds Rajkhowa, Paresh Barua, ‘Siddhartha Phukan, Anup Chetia and Aniruddha Chowdhury are still at large,
The army has also so far failed to rescue the six who were taken hostage by the ULFA on July 2, With the army operation apparently getting bogged down, the Saikia detractors in the Congress are claiming that Prime Minister, ‘Narasimba Rao has agreed to talks ‘with the militants without any ‘preconditions. According to them, the first round of talks will center on the issue as to why ULFA wants an independent Assam,
Article extracted from this publication >> November 15, 1991
