Offer to Paresh Baruah in national interest: Assam CM

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said his offer that the government might consider it on humanitarian grounds if ULFA leader Paresh Baruah wanted to visit his ailing mother was in keeping with national interest.

The chief minister was reacting to a reported statement by union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju that Gogoi's offer was "undermining national interests".

"I know my national interests and I just gave an option to facilitate an ailing mother's reunion with her son, by keeping national interest on the top," Gogoi said in a statement.

"I have all along been fighting the anti-national forces and I have succeeded to a great extent in containing these forces. National interest all along has been a priority and utmost importance to me, I don't want anybody's advice on it," he added.

The chief minister however, clarified that he had made a statement that if Baruah wanted to visit his ailing mother, the government might consider it on humanitarian grounds and his gesture should not be construed as a "safe passage" to the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) leader.

Baruah's mother Miliki Baruah is suffering from old-age ailments in Assam's Dibrugarh district.