'Paresh Baruah safe': Ulfa-I rejects death reports

GUWAHATI: After hours of speculation about Ulfa (Independent) chief Paresh Baruah’s death, the outfit dismissed such reports and said the ‘commander-in-chief’ of the proscribed outfit was “safe and sound”.

“A fake news with regard to our vice chairman cum chief of staff Major General Paresh Asom has been circulated in a section of media about his so-called accident and death. We would like to clarify to our freedom-lovi-ng people of Asom that our leader is safe and sound,” a statement issued by Romel ‘Asom’, member of the outfit’s publicity department, on Wednesday said.

Calling the reports a “hoax” by people “with vested interests”, Ulfa (I) urged the people of “Asom” to “not believe in this kind of propaganda” about Baruah.

A news portal on Wednesday, in a report marked “exclusive”, wrote that Indian intelligence agencies had picked up “inputs” about Baruah’s death in a road accident at Ruili along the China-Myanmar border. Several local media agencies quoted the website to report the rebel leader’s “death”. By Wednesday evening, however, most links to the reports were dead or pages were removed.

Police and the pro-talks faction of the outfit, while confirming that Baruah had met with an accident, denied reports of his death.

DG (home guards) Pallab Bhattacharyya said: “We had received information about Baruah’s accident a couple of months ago, but nothing about his death. We reached out to other agencies and his family, but no one confirmed claims of his death. Assam Police can’t comment without verifying the facts first.”

Anup Chetia, general secretary of the pro-talks faction of Ulfa, said: “Baruah met with an accident three months ago while riding a bike in the hills of Myanmar. He broke a couple of ribs and injured a toe. When contacted later, he told me he was recovering well.” Former CM Tarun Gogoi hit out at Assam Police for lack of specific information.