Government works contractor lobby: which also provided patronage to the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). When posters were put up by presumably this contractor lobby, which would have lost its annual lucrative contracts for "flood protection": many locals participated in a public meeting on 1 June 1997, to express solidarity with the constructive work done. The local police offered Sanjoy protection, in view of the public threats issued by ULFA. Sanjoy however refused this, in tune with his personal beliefs that "local people are my best protection". ULFA abducted Sanjoy on 4 July 1997. Some of Sanjoy's written work, was put together and was released as a book by Penguin Books in 1998: titled "Sanjoy's Assam: diaries and writings of Sanjoy Ghose" Death A newspaper article in the Deccan Herald on 9 February 2009 claimed that "(Ghose) had been killed a day after he was abducted by ULFA cadres on July four, 1997, and his body, which was never found, was thrown into the swirling waters of the Brahmaputra. The killing,... was carried out by local cadre even before the top leadership could convey to them the message not to harm him to avoid possible international repercussions." Confirming that the death was at the hands of local ULFA terrorists,the ULFA leader, Paresh Baruah stated in an interview that "there was no instruction to kill Sanjoy Ghosh". The Central Bureau of Investigation, which had been entrusted with the investigations, of the murder of Sanjoy Ghose, had filed chargesheets against 11 ULFA militants. The local ULFA leader, Amrit Datta, who was accused of masterminding the kidnap and murder of Sanjoy Ghose was killed in a joint operation by the Central Reserve Police Force, and the local police in a shootout in the evening of 19 July 2008 in Majuli. Arabinda Rajkhowa, the Chairman of ULFA, publicly apologised at Majuli for the killing of Sanjoy Ghose, as per news reports of June 2011. His widow, Mrs. Schumita Ghose, responded, "Only the Almighty has the power to forgive. I am just a human being and I want justice to be done." Legacy An international appeal for his release carried by the leftist magazine Economic and Political Weekly, summarised his work in Rajasthan and in media advocacy thus; "From 1986 to 1995 Sanjoy did pioneering work in western Rajasthan. He set up URMUL Trust in 1986 in Bikaner with the chief objective of empowering