AASU puts pressure on Dispur, New Delhi to implement Accord

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Aug 9: The Assam Accord is going to complete 32 years on August 15, but its implementation is far from being satisfactory. The core issue of the Accord, the problem of foreigners in the State, is becoming more complicated. With a tinge of caution to the government, the AASU is going to light 32 flames with each of its regiol committee on August 14 to commemorate the day.

The programme will start with a-minute silence in memory of the martyrs of the Assam Agitation and paying them tribute. AASU president Dipanko Kumar th and general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said in a statement issued to the press on Wednesday that the problem of infiltration of foreigners into the State was becoming more and more critical. “There are illegal foreigners in tribal belts and blocks, government lands and the like. They encroached upon xatra lands and brought a demographic change in the State. In the past 32 years, the successive governments at Dispur and New Delhi failed to implement the Assam Accord. The Gauhati High Court and the Supreme Court of India accepted the validity of the Assam Accord. Under a directive from the apex court, the NRC is being updated in Assam. Against the Assam Accord, there has been no identification of foreigners in the State, no deletion of foreigners’ mes from the electoral roll and no bilateral agreement between India and Bangladesh for deportation of foreigners from Assam. India inked as many as 22 agreements with Bangladesh, but none of them is related to Assam. The India-Bangladesh border is still to be fenced completely, and the government has failed to provide constitutiol, political and economic safeguards to the indigenous people of the State. The Ashok Paper Mill is still to be reopened. As though to cap it all, there is a move to accord Indian citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis. We’re not going to let such a move to get its shape. Regardless of their faith, Assam is not ready to shoulder the burden of foreigners who entered the State after March 25, 1971,” the statement said.

The students’ body made it crystal clear that in order to ensure the supremacy of the indigenous people of the State the Assam Accord has to be implemented in a stipulated time.