Bodo leaders’ murders remain unsolved, more killings feared

GUWAHATI, AUG 25: Even as the police are yet to ascertain the identities of the killers of Bodo Sahitya Sabha president Bineswar Brahma an...

GUWAHATI, AUG 25: Even as the police are yet to ascertain the identities of the killers of Bodo Sahitya Sabha president Bineswar Brahma and Bodo legislator Mohini Basumatary, the Assam government has decided to institute magisterial inquiries into the two murders.

While Brahma, also a senior officer of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), was murdered in his residence here on Saturday, People’s Democratic Front (PDF) legislator Mohini Basumatary was shot dead by unidentified youths in his native village at Bijni in Bongaigaon district on Monday.

The decision to institute a magisterial inquiry into the two killings was taken at a high-level meeting of top police and civil officers convened by chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta here on Wednesday. The chief minister also visited the native villages of the two Bodo tribal leaders yesterday, and took stock of the situation in Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts, both having substantial percentage of Bodo population.

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Meanwhile, the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), the Bodo Sahitya Sabha and the PDF have urged the chief minister to hand over the two cases to the CBI.Sources in Assam Police meanwhile said that there have been some apprehensions that more such attacks on important Bodo leaders might take place in the next few weeks, especially in view of the fact that the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) had recently showed signs of becoming desperate.

The Assam government has already put on alert the police in all the districts of the state in view of such apprehensions. Several Bodo leaders have also asked for additional police cover in the last few days.The NDFB, according to sources in the police, was not willing to accept the fact that the Bodo militancy situation had cooled down considerably following the ceasefire agreed upon by the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (BLT), the other armed Bodo underground group.

The recent move initiated by the ABSU to unite all Bodo political groups under one banner in order to intensify the movement for a separate Bodo state too has been apparently disliked by the NDFB leaders.

Bodo Sahitya Sabha president Bineswar Brahma is believed to have been murdered following his taking leadership to unite the Bodo groups and pressing the militant outfits to refrain from unlawful activities.The NDFB, according to analyses made by intelligence agencies on the other hand is believed to have had a hand in the killings of former ABSU president Swambla Basumatary and noted scholar Bihuram Boro in the past few years. The group is also believed to be opposed to the Bodo Sahitya Sabha’s move to get the Devanagari script for the Bodo language.