ULFA backs protests by youths

GUWAHATI: The banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) on Monday backed violent protests staged by a youth organisation in the local Doordarshan Kendra recently, terming it a reflection of the ''annoyance of the new generation of Assam against the attitude of occupation India''.The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) had recently stormed the television station in the city, ransacking it and damaging property worth several lakhs to express their resentment against an alleged bid to deprive locals from a recruitment drive.''People have a right to use any mode of protest they choose to protest against the ruler as far as a civil society is concerned.ULFA greets such a struggling endeavour of the new generation,'' the ULFA said in the latest edition of its monthly newsletter, Freedom. Denying that it was trying to take political leverage from these events, the ULFA maintained that ''.... every conscious patriot of Assam knows about the rampant exploitation and the anti-Assam attitude of occupation India''. ''In one sense, as far as anybody considers himself a good Indian, then the grievances like ''job for local'' is totally utopian. Within such a fact, everybody is local within the parameter of India,'' the newsletter stressed. ''The present Assam is not a state within a state but an administration of an occupation state without an eco-political reality. Indeed India does not even consider our nationality as a unique one.''