The Dhemaji culprits

It is very sad that the prosecution and investigating agencies have failed to nail the culprits involved in the Dhemaji blast of August 15, 2004, which left several people, including thirteen little children, dead. It is because of this that the Gauhati High Court has acquitted the accused. The High Court had acquitted them on the ground that the prosecution had not been able to prove the charges against them beyond a reasonable doubt.While this reflects sadly on the efficiency of the police, the prosecution, and the various other agencies entrusted with the task of placing foolproof evidence before the High Court, Dispur should probably take a call at the highest level so that the culprits do not go scot-free.Officers of the investigating agencies should also be held accountable for their failure. The whole world knows that the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), a gang of criminals who commit all kinds of crimes in the name of “liberating” Assam, triggered the blast. The Dhemaji District and Sessions Court earlier held as many as six persons guilty of the blast and convicted them under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The lower court had in 2019 held six persons guilty, namely Dipanjali Borgohain, Lila Gogoi, Jatin Dowara, Muhi Handique, Hemen Gogoi, and Prasanta Bhuyan, all members of the ULFA. While the first four were sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial court, the two others were sentenced to four years in jail. The Dhemaji incident is not the only such brutal act of killing carried out by the ULFA. In fact, looking back, any sensible Assamese will agree that the ULFA, through its criminal activities, pushed the state back by several decades. A large number of able-bodied young boys, who would have become some of the best soldiers in the Indian Army if properly guided, were lured into the death trap by a handful of criminals, none of whom is known to have acquired even a normal university degree. Likewise, several hundred people, including police personnel, petty businessmen, government employees, and even simple villagers engaged in agricultural activities, were killed by this criminal gang, one of the reasons for the killings being their refusal to part with their hard-earned money. The worst thing this gang has done is scare away several thousand hardworking Indian nationals, mostly from Bihar but also from other parts of the country, by unleashing a series of armed attacks on them. While it is a fact that the ULFA had the blessings of some of the unfriendly neighbours of India, it is now well established that the Hindi-speaking people were chased off in order to accommodate thousands of illegal migrants from Bangladesh and East Bengal in the vacuum thus created.