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KOKRAJHAR: Former BTC Chief Hagrama Mohilary and Working President of the Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM) DD Narzary on Monday extended their profound gratitude to the first Bodo women martyrs of the Bodoland Movement, Gaide Basumatary and Helena Basumatary. They said that Gaide and Helena, the brave Bodo women who sacrificed their lives in police firing near Saraibil in Gossaigaon subdivision in 1989, were not only martyrs but symbols of courage to love Bodoland’s people and fight for equal rights and justice.
May 12 is observed as the Boro Bima Saan (Bodo Mothers’ Day) every year by the All-Bodo Women’s Welfare Federation (ABWWF) since their martyrdom. Both Gaide and Helena Basumatary were shot dead on the spot by Assam Police when they protested against arrest of common people in the Saraibil area in 1989. Their 37th death anniversary was observed by the federation at their burial place in Saraibil on Monday.
BJSM Working President DD Narzary said that they were the victims of police atrocities or state terrorism to brutally suppress the Bodoland Movement under the leadership of the then ABSU president Bodofa UN Brahma. He said that the existing ABSU leaders should understand the fact that this state terrorism and the large encroachments in protected tribal lands by the aggressive non-tribal people and the opposition groups of Bodoland Statehood Movement are the main enemies of peace and tranquillity in this region, not the Bodoland statehood agitators. He also said that after the BTR Accord, the non-tribal people must have felt peace because of its guarantee that there will be no separate state of Bodoland and all non-tribal people will get equal land rights with tribal people but they were not satisfied with that and needed all rights and privileges equally even though the BTC/BTR Accord was created at the cost of the lives of over 5000 Bodo youths.
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