GUWAHATI: One of India’s most wanted militants has finally been sacked from his government job after officials realised he was still on the payroll 30 years after he last turned up for work.

Paresh Baruah, commander-in-chief of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, joined the state-run Northeast Frontier Railways as a porter in 1978.

One year later, he went underground as a founder member of the ULFA fighting for an independent homeland for ethnic Assamese in the northeastern state of Assam.

The group went on to become a powerful rebel army which has been blamed for more than 500 bomb blasts over the last three decades, including attacks on the railways network.

Despite being absent from his porter’s job from January 1980, Baruah’s name was never removed from the list of employees, although his salary was frozen, local officials said.Rather than simply erasing any mention of Baruah, the authorities felt compelled to go through an official dismissal procedure. A formal hearing date was fixed last month and only after Baruah — wanted for crimes that carry the death penalty — failed to turn up was he officially dismissed.