GAUHATI: India urged Bhutan and other neighbours on Friday to help track down separatist rebels who killed 69 villagers in Assam as it stepped up its military offensive in the restive northeastern state.
India has already deployed 6,000 additional security forces and military helicopters to scour the remote area where armed militants mounted a series of coordinated attacks on tribal villagers on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj sought Bhutan’s help to trace the militants amid indications that some of them may have fled to neighbouring countries.
“The minister did take it up with the Bhutanese leadership to seek their support in what we see as a national endeavour to tackle the scourge that is creating a problem there,” ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters in New Delhi.
Swaraj was “assured of support” from Bhutan and is also “working on trying to contact other friendly countries in this context”, he added.
India’s northeastern region borders China, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, and Nepal, and rebels are believed to often criss-cross the thickly forested, mountainous boundaries.
Police have blamed the recent attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has waged a violent decades-long campaign for an independent homeland for indigenous Bodo people.
Assam, which borders Bhutan and Bangladesh, has a long history of often violent land disputes between the Bodo people, Muslim settlers and rival tribes.
“We are definitely going to intensify operations,” army chief Dalbir Singh Suhag told reporters after meeting the home minister, Rajnath Singh, to discuss the security situation in Assam. There have been reports of tribal groups armed with machetes and bows and arrows setting fire to houses and shops in Bodo-dominated areas in retaliation for the attacks, in which 18 children were killed.
Another three people were killed on Wednesday when police shot at a mob demanding justice over the attacks at a police station. Around 7,000 people have fled their homes in the wake of the violence, many seeking refuge in makeshift camps set up by the government.
PPFA BATS FOR 1951 AS CUT-OFF YEAR, OPINES FOR WORK PERMITS TO SETTLERS
Guwahati: Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA) reiterates its stand
to detect all immigrants from the then East Pakistan and later
Bangladesh with the national cut-off year (1951) and urges the Union
government in New Delhi to think about offering work permits (without
voting rights) to them in case their deportation becomes impossible
because of serious humanitarian & international crisis.
The forum in a statement also appealed to Sarbananda Sonowal led
government at Dispur to support 1951 as cut-off year for detection of
foreigners in the Supreme Court of India, as the case is presently in
its jurisdiction. Considering the spirit of Assam Movement (1979 to
1985) to deport all foreigners with 1951 base year, for which over 850
martyrs-Khargeswar Talukder being the first, sacrificed their lives,
the PPFA found reasons to support the same.
The forum pointed out that the immigrants who entered India after 1951
till 16 December 1971 should be treated as East Pakistani nationals,
as Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign nation only after 16 December
(not 25 March 1971 as often reported in Indian media outlets)
following the surrender of Pakistani forces under the leadership of
AAK Niazi to the Muktijoddhas (forces of Bangladesh freedom struggle).
Arguing strongly to deport the immigrants from Bangladesh, who came
after 16 December 1971, the forum urged the Union government to start
diplomatic exercises with the Bangladesh government in Dhaka. It also
expressed hope that a friendly regime in Dhaka would respond to New
Delhi’s worries positively and timely.
In another aspect, the forum commented that once the citizenship
amendment bills are duly passed in the Parliament, all the Hindu,
Buddhist, Sikh, Christian refugees should be rehabilitated with equal
distribution across the country. Among them, those who prefer to stay
legally in Assam should adopt the Assamese language as their medium of
instructions, asserted the statement.
“Adopting the Assamese language as the medium of instruction by those
settlers would help in promoting the Assamese culture and thus
contributing for a stronger and safer India. It will also help
removing the linguistic threat perception to the indigenous populace
of the State,” opined the statement endorsed by Rupam Barua, Nava
Thakuria, Pramod Kalita, Jagadindra Raichoudhury, Anup Sarma, Ujjal
Saikia, Anirban Choudhury, Tarali Chakrabarty, Bhaswati Sarma,
Bidhayak Das, Kishour Giri, Dhiraj Goswami, Sabyasachi Sharma, Mridul
Kumar Chakrabarty, Prarthana Hazarika, Sewali Kalita etc.