NEW DELHI — A insurgent group that fought for many years to free India’s northeastern state of Assam from New Delhi’s rule on Friday signed a peace accord with the federal government pledging to finish the insurgency within the area.

The United Liberation Front of Asom or ULFA, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa, concluded 12 years of negotiations with the Indian authorities. The signing ceremony in New Delhi was attended by India’s Home Minister Amit Shah and the highest elected official of Assam state Himanta Biswa Sarma.

However, the group’s hard-line faction, led by Paresh Baruah, shouldn’t be a part of the settlement. Baruah is believed to be hiding someplace alongside the China-Myanmar border, the Press Trust of India information company stated.

ULFA, shaped in 1979 demanding a “sovereign Assam,” carried out a reign of terror in Assam state within the late Eighties, together with extortion, kidnappings and killings, particularly focusing on the state’s flourishing tea firms. It killed a number of tea planters.

India banned ULFA in 1990. It then arrange bases in neighboring Bangladesh and coordinated with a number of different rebel teams in India’s northeast.

Indian navy operations in opposition to ULFA started in 1990 and have continued till the current.

In 2011, ULFA cut up after Bangladesh handed over a number of high ULFA leaders, together with Rajkhowa, to Indian authorities. The Rajkhowa faction joined peace talks with the Indian authorities that yr.

ULFA shifted its base to Bhutan, however in 2003 it was attacked by the Indian and Bhutanese armies. Rebels have been dislodged from 30 camps within the Bhutanese jungles.

Indian forces are battling dozens of ethnic rebel teams in India’s distant northeast who’re pushing calls for starting from impartial homelands to most autonomy inside India.

In 2020, greater than 600 insurgents belonging to totally different insurgent teams surrendered to Indian authorities within the northeast in response to a authorities peace initiative that can permit them to rejoin mainstream society, police stated.

They laid down assault rifles, grenades, bombs and different weapons and have been stored in government-run camps and taught technical expertise to equip them to take up jobs.

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Wasbir Hussain reported from Guwahati, India.