ULFA Abducts BJP Leader’s Son, Demands 1 Crore
GUWAHATI : A chilling ISIS-style video — showing a young man kneeling, asking for help, surrounded by five masked men holding guns — has been released by the banned militant group ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam). The man is 27-year-old Kuldeep Moran, whose father is a BJP leader and uncle a BJP legislator in Assam.
The ULFA — notorious for a series of kidnappings and killings in the northeast — has demanded Rs. 1 crore for his release – a ransom amount unprecedented in the organisation’s 37-year history. This is also possibly the first time the organisation has released a ransom video like this. The son of BJP leader Ratnaswer Moran and nephew of party lawmaker Bolin Chetia, Kuldeep was kidnapped from Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district on August 1. Four days ago, media houses received the email from ULFA demanding ransom.
Dressed in a green T-shirt, Kuldeep is heard begging his parents, uncle and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to free him. “I am sick, I miss my parents. Please pay the ransom and get me released. I could be killed in a crossfire,” he is heard saying in Assamese.
appeal to the abductors to release the boy as a humanitarian gesture… Our government believes that violence will achieve nothing,” Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal told to a tv cahnnel.The email to the media houses was sent by Arunodoy Dauhotia, assistant publicity manager for ULFA (I) – the faction led by Paresh Baruah. A self-styled commander, Baruah has refused to follow former colleagues like Arabinda Rajkhowa and give up arms.
The video is similar to the ones released by terror group ISIS of victims who have subsequently been beheaded, mostly on camera.”We’ve never had such a huge ransom demand, nor a video in ISIS style,” said Mr M Mahanta, Superintendent of Police, Tinsukia district. “We are in touch with Arunachal Pradesh police to identify the location where it was shot.”
Mr Bolin Chetia, BJP legislator from Sadiya in Tinsukia district, said, “We are shocked. The government has ordered a full probe.” Kuldeep, who is married, was working with Mr Chetia.Both Mr Chetia and Mr Ratneswar Moran, Kuldeep’s father, used to be members of the Congress before switching sides ahead of the last Assembly elections. This is the first such incident in Assam after the BJP came to power in the state.
