Willing to go to jail for supporting anti-Citizenship Bill stir: Chetia

Pro-talk ULFA leader Anup Chetia Wednesday said he was not afraid of going to jail for supporting the stir against the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

"We are always with the people of Assam because if the people exist, we exist. We will continue to speak against the bill as it is a conspiracy to make the Assamese community extinct," the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) leader told reporters here.

"If for speaking against it (bill) I have to go to jail... I will. I have served jail time for 18 years in foreign land. So, I am not afraid to go to jail," he added.

He alleged that the government was trying to scare him and other members of his group with threats of imprisonment for supporting the ongoing agitation.

"Through the media, I urge the government to not threaten us... in order to dissuade us from supporting the cause," he said.

Chetia alleged that he along with another ULFA leader Mrinal Hazarika were summoned by Dispur Police Station on the charge of gheraoing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in Guwahati on January 6.

The police also asked the duo to be present in the police station on Thursday, he claimed.

However, he said that the allegations against him were "completely baseless".

"I was not present when the BJP office was gheraoed as on that day I was busy at a different programme," he said, adding that there was a conspiracy to evict the group from their office in the Hatigaon area of the city.

"It (office) is not of the ULFA but of Khilongia Asom Jitiyo Niyas. We want to remind those conspiring against us that this is a democratic country, we have returned to a democratic country... Refrain from conspiring against us as it will not mentally weaken us," the ULFA leader said.

Chetia as the general secretary of the banned ULFA was incarcerated in a jail in Bangladesh from 1997 and handed over to India by Bangladesh government in November 2015.

He was lodged in Gauhati Central Jail till his release on bail on December 24, 2015.