GUWAHATI, May 9: United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) self-styled commander-in-chief, Paresh Baruah has admitted to having abducted ONGC employee Ritul Saikia in the militant outfit’s custody.
The ULFA-I chief’s disclosure before a section of the electronic media came hours after Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed reporters that Saikia was “in good health and being held by the outfit at a location in Myanmar close to the country’s border with India.”
Sarma had made the statement after meeting the abducted ONGC employee’s family members at their residence at Titabor in Jorhat district on Tuesday morning.
The chief minister also informed that all-out efforts have been made to ensure the abducted ONGC employee’s safe return.
Speaking to a city-based media channel over satellite phone, the ULFA-I chief acknowledged the chief minister’s revelation as accurate, saying, “Ritul Saikia is in our custody and is being looked after well. He is hale and hearty and will return to his family soon if the pandemic doesn’t hinder the process.”
A junior engineer assistant, Saikia was one of three ONGC employees to have been abducted from a rig site of the oil company in Upper Assam’s Sivasagar district on April 21, 2021.
The other two employees were rescued by security forces three days after an operation in Nagaland, close to the India-Myanmar border.
The militant outfit had thereafter maintained that the abducted ONGC employee “was not in their custody”.
It may be mentioned that ULFA (I) had recently placed seven demands before ONGC, one of which was job reservation for local youths in the public sector undertaking.
The ULFA (I) chief exuded confidence in the chief minister’s statement that there has been no objection by anyone so far to the militant outfit’s demands.
ULFA-I has declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire from May 15, “considering the critical COVID situation in the state”.
The chief minister had on Tuesday categorically stated that the government’s doors were open if ULFA-I desired to join the peace process “by preparing the ground rules and honouring the limitations of all”.