Dibrugarh: Miliki Barua, the mother of ULFA chief Paresh Barua, on Saturday urged the Centre to focus on engaging the outlawed group in parleys instead of ordering the resumption of army operations against it.
Participating in a public meeting organised by the People's Committee for Peace Initiative (PCPI), a conglomerate of groups sympathetic to the ULFA cause, the 72-year-old woman said, "Just asking the ULFA to come to the negotiating table will not help. The Centre should show its sincerity."
"If the Centre is sincere it would not have launched the army operations from today. If the talks are making no headway, the Centre could have discussed about it instead of pushing the state into certain bloodshed," Barua said that soon after the Centre called off a truce with the ULFA and army resumed operations against the group in Assam.
The Centre should also find ways to educate the youths of the state to prevent them from joining insurgent groups, she said.
It should show "its sincerity and help educate the youth who are otherwise forced to leave their home and go the jungles", she added.
She accused the Centre of failing to live up to the promises and assurances it made to the ULFA-nominated People's Consultative Group during three round of talks.
"If the Prime Minister says that ULFA has no popular support, he should take the people's referendum," she said.
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