Student groups promise stir against Bangladeshi migrants

The issue of hundreds of suspected Bangladeshi migrants who entered Assam after being pushed out from Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland is hotting up, with several organisations demanding their identification and expulsion before they disappear.

The issue of hundreds of suspected Bangladeshi migrants who entered Assam after being pushed out from Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland is hotting up, with several organisations demanding their identification and expulsion before they disappear.

Leading the move is the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which has sent a delegation to New Delhi to meet Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and apprise him of the situation. “Assam cannot be a dumping ground for Bangladeshi migrants,” AASU President Sankar Prasad Roy said.

The All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) on its part

has warned Bangladeshi migrants to quit the four Bodoland territorial districts as early as possible. The ABSU, which is politically opposed to the Bodo People’s Progressive Front (BPPF-H), a partner of the ruling Congress-led alliance, has got its support in keeping the Bangladeshi migrants out of the four Bodoland districts.

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In Lakhimpur and Sonitpur, districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh, the district units of AASU have already launched agitational programmes to press the Government to take action against suspected Bangladeshi migrants. A similar demand has come from Jorhat, where suspected Bangladeshi migrant families arrived after they were pushed out from Nagaland last week.

In Kokrajhar, the arrival of 16 families of suspected Bangladeshi migrants has created a lot of tension, with the ABSU and BPPF-H saying these families were trying to acquire government land by claiming to be victims of ethnic violence that occurred in Barpeta in 1993-94. The ABSU has set a deadline of one week for these 16 families to quit the districts.

“Some groups are trying to settle Bangladeshi families ousted from Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland by claiming they were victims of the 1993-94 violence. But even if it is true, there is no question of settling them in Kokrajhar because the riots did not take place here,” ABSU president Rwngwra Narzary said.

The BPPF(H) has also made it clear that Bangladeshis would not be allowed to settle in the Bodo autonomous districts. “We cannot allow these suspected Bangladeshi migrants to settle in the Bodo districts,” said Khampha Borgoyari, deputy chief executive member of the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) council.

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Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, however, says those pushed out from Arunachal Pradesh were not Bangladeshis but labourers from Assam who did not have valid entry documents to work in the other state. This statement has further agitated the students and opposition parties, with AGP President Brindaban Goswami asking on what basis the CM defended the suspected Bangladeshis.

The BJP will soon dispatch a team comprising six MPs to study the migrant issue.