Chitrabon Hazarika

Chitrabon Hazarika is the Finance Secretary of the banned group ULFA, Assam. He has also been holding the additional charge of general secretary since Anup Chetia’s arrest in 1997. He is married to Pranati Deka, the arrested Cultural Secretary of the group.

Arrest On Sunday night, 1 November 2009, unidentified gunmen took away Hazarika, along with the group’s foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury, from a house in sector 3 of Uttara in Dhaka. Later they were pushed back to the Indo-Bangladesh border where they were detained by BSF in Tripura while trying to infiltrate on the night of 4 November. They were handed over to Assam Police on 6 November by the BSF. But according to the Assam Police, the leaders surrendered before BSF in Tripura fleeing the crackdown against them in Bangladesh.

On Saturday, 7 November 2009, the Special Operation Unit of the Assam police produced Choudhury and Hazarika before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kamrup (Metropolitan).

Reaction On 9 November 2009 ULFA called for a 12-hour Assam bandh (general strike) from 6 am demanding their unconditional release. ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, in a statement issued through e-mail, described the two leaders' arrest as a "ploy to sabotage the process of finding a political solution to the problem and destroy ULFA militarily."