Asom govt puts ULFA leaders release for Ram in Centre's court

Guwahati, July 9 (UNI) The Asom government today said it will discuss with the Centre the issue of releasing two jailed ULFA leaders to secure the release of an abducted Food Corporation of India executive director.

''We will have to discuss the issue of releasing the jailed militants with the Centre including the Home ministry,'' state government spokesman Ripun Bora said.

The statement came in the wake of latest reports that the FCI official, P C Ram, was alive as his family in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh received a phone call on July 6 which was reportedly made by Ram and an ULFA statement, released to the media here last night, claiming the official was alive.

However, Mr Bora said, ''Whether Ram is safe as claimed by ULFA will be established only if he returns.'' Meanwhile, media reports here quoted an intelligence source as saying that Ram's call was made from a satellite phone from Pakistan.

This came to light following an investigation by the Uttar Pradesh police on the numbers recorded on the telephone of the official's residence.

The state government and Police had confirmed that Ram was alive after his son Pravin received a phone call from Ram in the evening of July 6, a week after Ram's reported 'body' was identified by Pravin and cremated accordingly.

Mr Bora said search operations to rescue Ram were still on.

A decomposed body, dug out in Baksa district of lower Asom on June 29, was identified as that of the FCI (NE) chief by his adopted daughter Junu Murmu and the FCI officials with Pravin confirming the identification a day later.

The corps was then flown to New Delhi, where it was cremated by Ram's family, with the Prime Minister also sending a condolence to the bereaved family.

Later ULFA claimed that the body was of an Army intelligence man and Ram was safe in its captivity.

Though the government initially negated the outfit's claims, a call from Ram to his family on Friday, with his son Pravin confirming his father's voice, made the government do a volte-face.

The result of a DNA test of the recovered body was still awaited. However, apprehensions aired by forensic experts here over the feasibility of a DNA test with the skin and hair samples collected from the highly decomposed body had cast doubt over the test results.

Pravin, who had identified the body as his father's, later said that he could have committed a mistake due to trauma of last few months and maintained that the July 6 call was ''undoubtedly from his father.'' ULFA was earlier reported to have demanded a ransom of Rs 21 crore, though Pravin never confirmed whether any money had been transacted.

ULFA has demanded release of Mrinal Hazarika and Pallab Saikia in return of Ram, who was abducted on April 17.

UNI