Assam Accord
The peace accord signed between the Rajkhowa faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Centre emerges as both a ray of hope and a subject of scepticism.
Names of two prominent political personalities from Assam, along with a Manipuri writer, have figured in the leaked database of potential Pegasus spyware targets, The Wire has reported.
The names are Samujjal Bhattacharya of All Assam Students Union (AASU), Anup Chetia from the pro-talks faction of ULFA, and Malem Ningthouja, a Delhi-based Manipuri writer.
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The Wire reported that Bhattacharya’s number was added to the list less than a month before the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announcement of the new ‘Clause Six Committee’. On July 16, 2019, the MHA had announced the reconstitution of a ‘high-level committee to implement Clause 6, a salient section of the Assam Accord.
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Among the new members was Bhattacharya, advisor to the All Assam Students Union (AASU), a signatory to the accord with the Union government in 1985, which aimed at putting an end to the anti-foreigner agitation led by the student body. The Wire said one reason the MHA reformulated the Clause Six Committee, in July 2019, was because the earlier committee members refused to be part of the exercise.
Meanwhile, one of the two contact numbers of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) leader, Anup Chetia, was selected for surveillance in late 2018, The Wire said. It is, however, not yet clear why he was targeted by the Pegasus client.
Chetia had taken an active part in the ULFA’s peace talks with the MHA as the general secretary of the ULFA (Progressive) in May 2018, demanding the scrapping of the Citizenship Amendment Bill — a precursor to the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act passed in December 2019 — and had threatened to walk out of the negotiations if the law was not dropped for Assam.
…With IANS inputs
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