[Assam] AASU haven’t you being kidded around by Delhi all along? Your past leadership Mahanta&Co has lot to explain. Why not quiz them also on their accountability putting them up on a public gallery?

[Bartta Bistar]

AASU asks PM to inspect border fencing

http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=apr1807/at01
By A Staff Reporter
 GUWAHATI, April 17 – Peeved at the delay in completion of the fencing along
the Assam-Bangladesh border, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) today
called upon the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh to visit the international
border areas for an on- the-spot assessment of the situation on the ground.
AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said that the Prime Minister himself
assured in a tripartite meeting on May 5, 2005 that the fencing along the
Assam-Bangladesh border would be completed by December 31, 2006 and he
should now visit the border areas to ascertain the situation on the ground
as the Government failed to keep his word. He said that the Prime Minister
and Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who also attended the tripartite meeting,
failed to monitor the work of fencing the international border and the
promise made in the meeting remained on paper only.

Bhattacharya said that in the tripartite meeting, the Central Government
promised to complete the fencing within 2006 and to replace the broken
fencing. During his visit to the international border areas in January last
year, the Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil also promised to complete the
fencing by the end of 2006. However, the Assam Minister in charge of Assam
Accord implementation, Dr Bhumidhar Barman told the State Assembly that the
fencing would be completed by March 31 this year. The AASU sent a team to
the international border areas to see the situation on the ground and it was
found that the international border is still open and only recently, the
Government accorded sanction to replace the broken fencing on a stretch of
more than 70 kilometres along the international border in Dhubri sector and
no one knows as to when the work would be completed.

The AASU adviser alleged that the failure to complete the border fencing
even after 22 years of signing of the Assam Accord once again proved the
step-motherly attitude of the Government of India towards the North East
region of the country. He pointed out that the fencing along the western
sector of the international

border was sealed in three years and it took more than two decades to seal
the border in the North East. He said that along with foreign nationals,
fundamentalist elements and persons inimical to India managed to sneak into
Assam from Bangladesh by taking advantage of the porous border because of
the negligence of the Government of India. "If the assurance given by the
Prime Minister are not fulfilled whom should the people of Assam approach
for ensuring sealing of the international border" he asked.

The students' body expressed its displeasure at the frequent postponement of
the scheduled tripartite talks to review the implementation of the Assam
Accord. The president of the body, Sankar Prasad Roy said that the
Government of India convened a tripartite meeting at New Delhi on April 3 to
review the implementation of the Accord and later the meeting was postponed.
The Government again informed the AASU that the meeting, to be chaired by
the Secretary, Border Management of the Ministry of Home Affairs, would take
place in Guwahati on April 18 and that meeting has also been cancelled and
the Government said that it had to be cancelled because of "unavoidable
circumstances". The frequent cancellations of the tripartite meetings proved
that the Government was not too keen on implementation of the Accord, he
added.

Meanwhile, AASU general secretary Tapan Kumar Gogoi alleged that the State
and Central Governments were creating confusion among the people of the
State on the issue of providing constitutional protection under the
provisions of clause 6 of the Assam Accord. He said that under the
provisions of clause 6 of the Accord, the AASU demanded special status to
Assam as was given to Jammu and Kashmir, right over land and natural
resources, reservation of seats in Assembly, parliament and local bodies to
Assamese people etc. He pointed out that only in case of seat reservation,
the definition of Assamese people is required but the Government has been
claiming that it failed to implement the other demands.

Gogoi also pointed out that when demanding seat reservation, the AASU had
pointed out that the existing reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes should not be touched and all those who lived in the State as per the
1951 NRC should be treated as Assamese people for seat reservation. But the
Government has been adopting delaying tactics and only complicated matters,
he alleged.
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