Citizen forum urges upon govt stricter measures.
By Abdul Gani, TwoCircles.net,
Guwahati: It’s more than one year since the ill-famed violence in Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD) took place which killed at least 77 people and left several lakhs displaced. But people living the troubled zone are yet to get rid of the trauma as they complain of ill-practices still going on.
Several organizations and the villagers have already made several attempts to draw the attention of the state government and the Bodoland Territorial Council authorities in this regard but in vain.
The situation is so terrible that some of the villagers even scared to spend even a day without having protection of security personnel. The people of Besharbari area under Amguri police Station in Chirang district are in trouble after the state government decided to withdraw the security personnel form that locality.
This has led them to start agitation and finally a delegation of the villagers met Assam Additional Director General of Police (Special Branch) Pallab Bhattacharyya to personally request on behalf of the people of the locality so that the security protection is not removed.
“We are scared after the removal of the security forces from our area. We have been requesting the district administration but in vain. Nobody is paying any heed to us. Our villages are situated in remote areas and surrounded by rivers and we do not have proper road. We sense that some anti-social elements might create disturbance tang this advantage,” Samsul Hoque Mandal, a youth of the locality told TCN after meeting ADGP in Guwahati.
During the last year’s violence around 200 houses were gutted in these areas and 10, 000 people in this locality alone were displaced.
He, however, expressed satisfaction that the ADGP responded well to their request. On the other hand, illegal activities like kidnapping, extortion etc are still going on in full swing in the BTAD.
“The people in the BTAD area are suffering from a lot of problems. There is no safety and security of lives and properties. Youths are still being kidnapped. A section of anti-social elements are doing their jobs like extortion freely making the common people’s life hell. We need a solution to all these problems,” said Jamsher Ali, president of BTAD Citizen Rights Forum after submitting a memorandum to Director General of Police, Assam, Jayanata Narayan Choudhury on Monday.
Besides, they have demanded several points to be fulfilled by the state government to bring normalcy in the BTAD area. “We want the government to take strict measures against the insurgents and who are involved to create all these disturbances in the BTAD areas. Government should take initiative to release all the kidnapped persons at the earliest. And more importantly, an office of Human Rights Commission should be set up in the area to deal with all the human rights violence activities,” Ali further said.