NRL was not given to Assam, it is a yield of the Assam Accord: Lurinjyoti Gogoi

A Correspondent

NUMALIGARH: “The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) will never agree to the privatization of NRL, a decision that tampers with the sentiments of the people of the State. The Numaligarh Refinery was not just given to Assam by the Central Government. It is the yield of the Assam Accord, which has the blood of 855 martyrs linked to it. If the Central Government goes for the privatization of NRL with its malevolent intentions, the people of Assam and the AASU will not sit back,” said the general secretary of the AASU, Lurinjyoti Gogoi at the protest site in front of Numaligarh Refinery Ltd at Numaligarh on Friday. Thousands of AASU activists staged a protest to save NRL from privatization in front of the NRL main gate, slamming the Assam Government’s weak role in safeguarding NRL.

Sharing the details of the journey of setting up of NRL, Gogoi also stated that it was a part of the Assam Accord, which was signed between the Centre and the leaders of the Assam Movement in August 1985, after years of intense violence. The Accord was meant to bring reconciliation and peace in the region. Alluding that NRL had been making a profit and a majority of officers and employees of the refinery were sons of the soil, Gogoi questioned the rationale behind the move to privatize NRL.

Chief organizing secretary of AASU State committee, Raju Phukon stated that the NRL had been the outcome of the six-year-long Assam Agitation to oust illegal migrants from the State in which 855 youths had lost their lives and more had lost their livelihood and homes. Phukon also stated that privatization of NRL would not be considered at any cost and if the government went for it, AASU and the people of Assam would take the protest further.

Protesters on Friday staged a protest by holding banners and placards in their hands, raising slogans against the government’s move to privatize NRL.

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