Guwahati, July 11: The Centre today set a new deadline, March 2008, to complete the task of fencing the Indo-Bangladesh border, much to the chagrin of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU).
The decision was taken during a tripartite meeting involving the Centre, Dispur and the AASU at the Administrative Staff College to review the implementation of the 1985 Assam Accord.
U.N. Panjiar, the secretary of border management in the Union home ministry, represented the Centre, while Assam chief secretary Prafulla Chandra Sharma headed the team of bureaucrats representing the state.
Adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya, president Shankar Prasad Ray and secretary Tapan Gogoi represented the AASU.
A senior official said the National Buildings Construction Corporation and the PWD had already been informed that the March 2008 deadline was “absolutely sacrosanct”, but the students’ union was in no mood to accept it.
Accusing the Centre of showing little interest in checking the influx of migrants from Bangladesh, the students’ organisation said all that it has been receiving are promises.
Bhattacharyya said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had given an assurance during the last tripartite meeting in March 2005 that the entire border would be fenced by December 2006.
“We are receiving assurances but no result,” he said.
Questioning the government’s sincerity, the AASU adviser asked that if the country’s western sector could be entirely fenced in just three years, why was it taking so long time to seal the eastern border.
Bhattacharyya also pointed out that 54 Bangladeshis were detected under the repealed IM(DT) Act in five months just before the act was repealed and not a single one was deported.
“Already 18 fundamentalists groups are operating in the Northeast — the time is not far when the Assamese will become minorities in their own state,” the AASU leader said.
The other issues discussed at the meeting were: the position of the National Register for Citizens, deployment of two battalions of India Reserve Battalion as second line of defence after the BSF and the sanction of Rs 3.3 crore for Jyoti Chitraban studio.