GUWAHATI: The week-old “Operation Rhino’ being conducted in Upper Assam to flush out militants of the United Liberation Front of Assam might not have won as many brickbats as the earlier equally massive “Operation Bajrang’ but it is not winning any bouquets.
Having failed to rescue any of the 15 hostages by gun power the Assam government is faced with an increasing sense of frustration among the state bureaucracy as well as the army authorities. The hostages were abducted by ULFA on July 1 within 24 hours of the present Congress ministry’s swearing-in ceremony. The fate of six of them including senior IAS office S.K.Tiwari and three ONGC executives is still unknown.
Three hostages have been killed by the militants the latest victim being B.P.Srivastava superintendent engineer of the ONGC Srivastava’s body was recovered by the police and para-military forces during a raid on the house of Jagat Bhavan headmaster of the senior high school in the Senshua Pokhri village in Dibrugarh district.
Unofficial sources claimed that militants killed Srivastava when troops attempted to rescue him by raiding the house from all sides at the same time. The state authorities however denied that there was any rescue operation. They said that although the raid was the result of a tip-off there was no definite information of any hostage being kept in Bhuvan’s house. When troops raided the house the militants numbering seven tried to flee “after killing one person they had brought with them” the official sources said. The militants were captured and the body recovered.
Srivastava’s killing has pot both the army operation in a poor light. Despite the authorities” claim that people are denying food and shelter to the fleeing militants and are helping the forces there is a among the people that the successive killings of three hostages and the government’s failure to rescue them point towards the authorities failure to negotiate with the militants.
At the same time the killing of Srivastava by ULFA even before the deadline extended up to Saturday evening could pass has estranged the militants further from the masses. The general reaction to this killing has been of shock and disbelief.
What is adding to the general skepticism about the entire operation which is being conducted mainly in Tinsukia Sibsagar Dibrugarh Nagaon Sonitpur Jorhat Golaghat and Dhemaji districts is the apparent lack of communication between the Central and state governments. The latest instance of this came on Thursday when the state government denied the Union home minister S.B.Chavan’s statement in Parliament that all negotiations with the militants had been closed. The Union ministers statement had nothing to do with the state government official sources stated here adding that negotiations are going on with the militants even as the forces are raiding their hideouts. “The state government is always eager to negotiate the issue with the militants and that option is being kept open” they said.
They also denied press reports that a Disturbed Area notification under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act had been issued soon after ‘Operation Rhino’ was launched in the early hours of Sept 5.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 27, 1991
