NE still united against CAA: AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya

A Correspondent

DIBRUGARH: The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) along with its Dibrugarh unit and other indigenous organizations organized “Jonotar Agnikantha” – an event against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act - on Saturday at Dibrugarh Government Boys’ Higher School playground, Milan Nagar.

Addressing a huge gathering, AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath spoke of the grave threat that Assam has been facing due to the CAA. He also highlighted various atrocities being unleashed by the law-enforcing agencies on the CAA agitators in a bid to crush the movement. To impress upon the masses the impending threat, Nath cited the case of Tripura where the indigenous Tripuri people and the Kokborok language have lost dominant status to Bengali due to the influx of immigrants from Bangladesh.

AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said that the CAA agitation has not lost its sheen or gone pale. He added that care was being taken not to disturb the academic side of the students vociferously protesting against the CAA and as such, there were periodic pauses being taken with regard to the agitation. Bhattacharya also sought advice from the public as to what new forms of democratic and constitutional protests could be considered to take the movement forward and to make it long-term.

Bhattacharya added that unlike some parts of the country where CAA agitations had taken a violent shape, the ones happening in Assam were peaceful as well as orderly. Criticizing the Central and the State governments for trying hard to divide the Northeast in its stand against the CAA by doling out sops, he stated confidently that despite all such efforts, the region was still united in its stiff opposition to the CAA. Bhattacharya also accused the government of having taken a policy of ‘suppression, division and temptation’ with respect to CAA agitators.

Bhattacharya also questioned the government that if it decided to exempt certain north-eastern States and specific tribal belts of Assam that came under Schedule 6, keeping in mind the dangers CAA might pose to their demographic and culture, what made it think that the contentious Act would not be a threat to the other areas of Assam and its art and culture?

AASU general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi spoke on similar concerns and underscored the importance of opposing this law tooth and nail.

Earlier, president of Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Parishad Udayan Kumar Gogoi addressed the gathering and urged the public to isolate the CAA supporters in all spheres of life.

Responding to a question asked by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal around a month back on why he was being alienated by the Assamese people, Gogoi said that it was only because his government was trying to sentence the Assamese society to death by lending support to the CAA.

President of an indigenous Muslim organization, Muhibul Ahmed warned the government not to take the Assamese people lightly and also not to misguide the Assamese youth regarding the CAA for they were intelligent enough to see through the desperate efforts of the government. He said that the sops the government was giving out to the public were its entitlements and must not be seen as a favour being done to them.

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