The Hindi-speaking migrants of Assam are being targeted by the Ulfa guerillas for quite some time now. The recent hostilities have reached such a level that they are now attempting to pack their bags and leave.

A growing urge to run away from the havoc let loose by the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) and other ethnic mercenaries in the state of Assam have made these people homeless.

In this month alone, more than 30 Hindi speaking dwellers were executed in the Karbi Anglong district, which is four times the number of people killed in comparable massacres in other places of Assam since the start of this year.

As Assamese and ethnic militants are slaughtering Hindi-speaking inhabitants, authoritative student and youth groups in Assam are planning to start on an unrestrained movement to dispose off so-called ‘illegal migrants’ from Bangladesh living in Assam.

Abhay Ram, was forced to leave his home in the pictorial district of Karbi Analong, as he could not bear the trauma any more. He fled for a safer place the day after the militants slaughtered his neighbors. Countless others like Abhay have also left for their familial villages in Hindi-speaking regions like Bihar.

On the other hand, in the north of Assam, near Dibrugarh, Shujat Ali is also being compelled to leave his home. He has been identified by the militant groups as an ‘illegal migrant’ from Bangladesh. The local youth groups have served him with a ‘notice to leave Assam’.

Shujat Ali and several hundreds of other people like him do not want to leave Assam as they consider the state as their native land where they have been born and brought up. But they are being tagged as an infiltrator, much to their horror.

Assamese radical groups are bullying out people like Shujat Ali with newly earned zest all across Assam. Many of them are seeking refuge in camps that had earlier sheltered Muslims dislodged due to the effect of racial decontamination.

Shujat Ali, while boarding a train leaving for Western Assam, remarked -

I don’t know where to go? My ancestors may have come from eastern Bengal (now Bangladesh) but I was born in Assam.

If Ali had been born in Assam, he is an Indian citizen by birth and has the legal right to settle anywhere he wishes to in the country. Then on what grounds is he being uprooted from his own home and being labeled as an ‘illegal migrant’?

Sammujal Bhattacharya, the ‘chief adviser’ of the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu), said in a threatening statement -

All illegal migrants from Bangladesh have to be expelled from Assam. Otherwise we will launch a huge agitation soon enough.

The ‘Aasu’ had went ahead with an influential crusade during 1979-1985 in opposition to illegal migrants staying in Assam. That campaign had worsened into a violent ethno-religious carnage and had killed more than 3,000 people. The disaster had finally finished with an agreement that the Aasu signed with the Indian government.

However, it seems now that the ‘Aasu’ is planning to renew their violent campaign as Mr. Bhattacharya summons all Assamese to unite in ‘one last battle’ against the ‘illegal migrants’.

The governments in Delhi and Assam have not implemented the Assam Accord. It has not expelled the infiltrators because they are a big vote bank,

- said Mr. Bhattacharya.

Mr Bhattacharya and his group have been encouraged by a regulation of the Indian Supreme Court last December which had a divisive section of legislation that has been interpreted by them as a devise to defend the marginal groups of Assam against random action by a government controlled by the Assamese.

However, the alleged ‘illegal migrants’ have decided to fight back this time. Badruddin Ajmal, chief of Assam’s nascent minority party, the United Democratic Front, said in a statement -

The harassment of our people has to stop. Their roots may be in what is now Bangladesh, but almost all of them were born in Assam. So why should they be thrown out.

Ajit Bhuiyan, a local journalist and one of the peacekeepers for the Ulfa, accuses the Indian government for the present state of affairs.

If a breakthrough had been achieved in the negotiations with the Ulfa, Assam would have returned to the road of peace. But now it is back to square one

- he said.

Assam has constantly been wealthy of resources and still is the foremost tea-producing state of the country. However, it has been unsuccessful in economic development. This is solely due to its endless ethno-religious clashes that have frightened investors and driven them away for almost 30 years now. And today, the previous quarrels in Assam are getting more and more intimidating.

Who is responsible for all this? Is it the Indian government or the ‘illegal immigrants’ or the narrow mentality of some people which prevents them from being able to coexist happily with people from other socio-religious communities? It is high time to consider this question.

Via: BBC

Image Credit: BBC