From our Staff Correspondent

DIBRUGARH, Aug 17: The national executive member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sarbananda Sonowal termed mass exodus of Northeast people from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, Maharashtra and Delhi as extremely unfortunate, lamenting that the people of the Northeast in general and Assam in particular have always been harassed in other parts of the country. “I appeal to the centre as well as the state government to ensure safety and security of the people and initiate all necessary measures to boost moral of the fleeing people. The Chief Minister should send his senior ministers to those states and help the suffering people so that they can overcome their mental trauma” said Sonowal. Coming down heavily on Tarun Gogoi led Congress government in the state for its failure in containing the violence and killings in BTAD areas and its subsequent unfortunate development in several parts of the country, Sonowal appealed to the state government to play a proactive role in order to end the crisis as well make sure that an atmosphere of trust and amity must be prevailed in the society. “The state government should be firm in dealing with all those miscreants and anti-national elements that are bent on destabilizing the traditional amity and communal harmony prevailing among the various communities particularly among Hindu and Muslim communities in the state” Sonowal asserted. Expressing serious reservation on President Pranab Mukherjee’s comment on the historic Assam Accord that it should be “revised”, the BJP national executive leader, Sonowal with his utter dismay questioned the justification of such remark made by the President. “The remark of the President on Assam Accord is certainly in contravention of court verdict as the accord was signed by non other than former Prime Minister, Rajib Gandhi on the auspicious day of August 15 in 2004 and later under my initiation, after much debate the three bench judges comprising of Chief Justice, RC Lahoty, Justice GB Mathur and Justice Bala Subramaniyam of the apex court had scrapped one of the most controversial clause of the accord - Illegal Migrants Detection Tribunal Act (IMDT)”, Sonowal stated. He demanded that the UPA government should make sure a time bound programme for implementation of Assam Accord and construction of fencing in Indo-Bangla border which should be declared positively in the ongoing parliament session. Answering a query, Sonowal sought an inquiry on Union Joint Secretary (Home) Shambu Singh’s comment that AIUDF Supremo Badruddin Azmal was behind the aggravation of the situation but later withdrew his own statement in the next day. “The inquiry should reveal under whose pressure or direction a senior joint secretary like Singh had retracted from original statement made in following day”, Sonowal quipped.