37 YEARS OF ASSAM ACCORD
STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) has asked Delhi and Dispur to initiate effective steps to implement every clause of the historic Assam Accord with strict deadlines.
The AASU's demand has come on the eve of completion of 37 years of the signing of the Assam Accord by the representatives of the Centre, the State Government and the AASU way back in the midnight of August 15, 1985. A joint press release issued by AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath and general secretary Sankor Jyoti Baruah on Saturday evening stated that implementation of the Assam Accord is the only solution to solve the vexed issue of illegal influx of Bangladeshis to the State.
"In the last 36 years, various political parties ruled from Delhi and Dispur. But no party was sincere and serious enough to implement the Accord in more than three decades. Such insincerity and lack of commitments of the governments have resulted in further aggravation of the problem of infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals to Assam," the AASU said.
The AASU release has alleged that the main or fundamental clause of the Assam Accord to detect illegal Bangladeshis, deleting their names from voters' lists and eventually deport them has not been implemented.
"The second line of defence along the Assam-Bangladeshi border has not been done. The Centre can fence the long India-Pakistan border on a war footing. But we simply do not understand as to why the Centre cannot seal the 376-km-long Assam-Bangladesh border in the last 36 years," the AASU leaders said. The AASU said it is now more than a year since the high-powered committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord constituted by the Centre, submitted its report and recommendations. But the report of the Clause 6 committee is yet to be implemented.
'Clause 6 is all about taking steps to ensure the constitutional safeguard of the indigenous people of Assam. Constitutional safeguard is a must to protect the identity and rights of the indigenous people in the face of the aggressive onslaught of Bangladeshis," the AASU said.
Expressing serious concern over the Centre's indifference to declare floods as a national problem, the AASU said that Clause 6 of the Assam Accord to bring about fast economic development to the State has also not been implemented. The AASU said that the massive exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has failed to yield positive results to detect illegal Bangladeshis.
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