’CM, IGP trying to cover up truth’

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, January 4: Raising a question over contradictory statements issued by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and IGP (law and order) SN Singh on the involvement of either Songbijit, chief of the NDFB insurgent group, or B Bidai, deputy chief of the outfit, in the December 23 carge in Kokrajhar and Sonitpur districts, former chief minister and senior AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta alleged that either Gogoi or Singh was trying to cover up the truth.

Addressing a press conference held here on Sunday, Mahanta said, “Tarun Gogoi, being the head of the State Home Department, and SN Singh, being a top State Police official, should not have issued such contradictory statements. What do these statements mean? Why is the confusion?” adding, “On most occasions, such contradictory statements come out to hide something fishy, like politician–police–militant nexus and all...”

He even alleged that the State government was trying to keep one of the NDFB factions “alive” for reasons best known to the government.

Criticizing the Chief Minister, Mahanta said he was accused by Gogoi of masterminding secret killings in the State then, but he had recently told that the present operation against Bodo rebels in the State was being conducted under the supervision of the Four Core Army and not the Assam Police. “How can I be made responsible for secret killings in the State then?” he added.

With this statement, Mahanta indirectly meant that secret killings were a high level security gameplan and not an exercise of the State Police which was then under his command.

He further said, “On April 22 last when the State was in the midst of different phases of elections, Chief Minister Gogoi, through media advertisements, exposed the then NDA government’s conspiracy against the AGP–led coalition government. The same Chief Minister, who earlier constituted the KN Saikia Commission of Inquiry into the secret killings, in his statement later, depicted a different picture on the same issue.”  On the Assam Accord issue, the former chief minister said that those who were conspiring against the implementation of the Assam Accord should be stopped.

He was referring to Matiur Rehman who recently filed a case in the Supreme Court for scrapping the Accord. “Is Matiur Rehman a part of the conspiracy to scrap the Accord?” Mahanta said.