Assam — Anger now at all Muslims, not just Bangladesh migrants

Infiltration in Assam gets a religious hue
Rajesh Sinha, Friday, October 10, 2008

GUWAHATI: For the first time in Assam, the resentment against immigrants and Bangladeshi infiltrators is wholly directed at Muslims in general. People in the riot-hit areas do not talk of migrant Muslims or Bangladeshi infiltrators any more. Be it Muslims or people of other faiths the conversation here is about ‘Muslims’ and ‘the others’. They do, however, agree that the root cause was infiltration — an indictment of the government’s failure to check it.

Bodos at a relief camp in Rauwta, Darrang district, said Muslims from the area attacked them and set their houses on fire in retaliation against a campaign to send Bangladeshi Muslims, and not Assamese Muslims, back.

Their explanation: the Assamese Muslims have developed social relations and marriage alliances with the Bangladeshis who live alongside them in Muslims localities. This was bound to happen if the Bangladeshis were allowed to settle down here, the refugees add. “They are all the same now, and they attacked all non-Muslims,” said a young man at the camp.

A stony silence greeted tribal affairs minister Promila Rani Brahma, a Bodo herself, when she urged refugees at a relief camp to go back to their villages. No one took her promise to ensure security seriously. Villagers said they dared not leave the camp, as people were dragged out of buses and killed. Many such tales were rumours, but the fear was real.

Tension is palpable here. Driving along the road one comes across rows upon rows of burnt down houses and sheds, damaged farm equipment and completely abandoned villages.

Fear reigns also at a Muslim relief camp some kilometres from the one the minister visited. Thousands of Muslims are living there. One of them, clearly an Assamese Muslim, said his village was sandwiched between Bodo villages on both sides. The Bodos had been threatening them and asking them to leave – or face consequences, he said.

According to him, the Bodos waited till Eid, on October 2, and then attacked them on Friday, October 3.

Locals also complain that Bangladeshi infiltrators have changed the indigenous Muslim population in one way. Earlier it was difficult to distinguish between Assamese Hindus and Muslims. But now the Muslims’ trademark skull cap, long kurtas and lungis has  compounded the “We vs They” crisis.

s_rajesh@dnaindia.net

Assam tribals: Stop illegal migration from Bangladesh

Stop infiltration: Assam tribals
BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Guwahati

Sept. 8: Ethnic tribal groups in Assam have called upon the central government to enforce an “effective” legal mechanism to tackle the problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh.

The All-Assam Tribal Sangha, an umbrella organisation of different ethnic groups in the state has also made an appeal to the Indian government to gear up vigilance infrastructure along the borders with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan to check the threat of demographic invasion.

The Sangha, which had a meeting with different tribal groups on the subject, feared that infiltration from Bangladesh may intensify in the coming days, with environmentalists predicting that one-third of Bangladesh would submerge because of rising sea-level due to global warming.

The sangha in a resolution stated: “It is high time now that an effective legal mechanism is evolved to hasten the detection and deportation of infiltrators. Equal importance should be given to having a strong deterrent force along the borders of not just Bangladesh but Nepal and Bhutan as well”.

Demanding special constitutional safeguards, if necessary by amending the Constitution for the indigenous people of the state, the tribal body said that all the tribal autonomous council areas in Assam should be brought under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution besides introducing the inner-line permit system in the state.

The umbrella tribal body also demanded a blanket ban on transfer of land ownership in tribal belts in the state.

Assam Goalpara violence: Tribals fear Bangladeshi Muslim illegals migrants may outnumber locals

Quote: Noted demographer and former director of Census operations NC Dutta said there is a well-drawn design to convert Goalpara and other districts of Lower Assam close to Bangladesh, into Muslim majority districts. Unquote

Goalpara violence: tribals fear migrants may outnumber locals
Samudra Gupta Kashyap, Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Indefinite curfew was clamped in Krishnai on Sunday aftenoon, while curfew was also extended to Goalpara town as a preventive measure to stop violence from spreading to the district headquarters.

Incidentally, Goalpara is one of the six districts of Assam which has become Muslim majority in the past three decades.

One Roshan Ali was killed in police firing when a mob tried to attack the Krishnai police station after six members of the community were picked up on charges of setting on fire two houses belonging to the indigenous Rabha tribal community.

Earlier, police had recovered the body of one Suren Rabha from a river near Krishnai town. Rumours spread that the body was that of a migrant Muslim, following which a mob set fire to houses belonging to one Moni Rabha and Hirendra Rabha.

“The number of migrant Muslims, most of whom are definitely of doubtful citizenship, is increasing in the Krishnai and Dudhnoi areas of Goalpara district. Everyday you see new hutments coming up on the riverine areas and on Government land,” Tankeswar Rabha, president of the All Rabha Students’ Union (ARSU), which has been sprearheading an agitation for Sixth Schedule status to the Rabha community said.

He said while the Government has already established a Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council (RHAC) covering 779 villages of the district, it is the immigrant Muslim community that has been opposing it vehemently.

“The Non-Rabha Coordination Forum that is opposing the Sixth Schedule status is nothing but a body of immigrant Muslims. And the most dangerous thing is that this group has the backing of various anti-national forces, including the ISI,” the ARSU president said.

Goalpara district is in the radar of intelligence agencies for its ISI and jehadi links, with Md Fakruddin alias Akram Master, the Naib Amir of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) in India also hailing from this district. Akram Master is at present based in Pakistan. Four of the 17 persons arrested for their alleged ISI links by the Assam Police in 1999 also hailed from Goalpara, of whom again three are from Krishnai. All four had been to Pakistan and Bangladesh for training in arms courtesy HuM and ISI, intelligence reports say.

“It is a fact that Krishnai and other areas of Goalpara have been witnessing increased violence in the past few years, and the main reason is definitely the tribal community’s fear of being wiped out by the migrant population,” admitted Sarat Rabha, chief executive member of the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council (RHAS).

Noted demographer and former director of Census operations NC Dutta said there is a well-drawn design to convert Goalpara and other districts of Lower Assam close to Bangladesh, into Muslim majority districts.

Assam: 5000 strong violent Muslim mob attack police station, indulge in arson and stone pelting

Assam police open fire on crowd
By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

A Muslim man was killed when police fired at a group of protestors in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam.

They were demonstrating against a movement for autonomy by the Rabha tribes people. Police said 20 others, including six policemen, were injured.

Bengali Muslims are the majority community in some districts of western Assam, bordering Bangladesh.

They say they will be marginalised if the Rabha tribals’ demand for an autonomous region is accepted.

The Rabhas want a separate autonomous region for their tribe on the lines of the autonomous council created for the Bodo tribe five years ago.

The tension started when a Rabha man was found dead on Sunday and police then arrested several Muslims.

A huge crowd of Muslims then gathered in front of the police station in Krishnai town in Assam’s western district of Goalpara, bordering Bangladesh, late on Sunday.

Police said the crowd turned violent and started pelting them with stones, forcing them to open fire. One man was killed. Earlier reports said the dead person was a woman. An indefinite curfew was imposed at Krishnai and is still in force.

Curfew imposed in Assam

May 26

Indefinite curfew has been clamped in Goalpara and Krishnai towns of lower Assam since Sunday after mob fury followed by a police firing that left one person dead and wounded four others.
High tension mounted in the area after miscreants torched two houses near Krishnai market and recovery of a 55-year old man’s body from a lake on Sunday.
The incidents took place on the last day of a 72-hour bandh called by several organizations of the Rabha tribes to protest against the delay in granting Sixth Schedule status to the community.
Police later picked up seven persons belonged to a particular community in connection with the arson and took them to Krishnai Police Station. In protest of the arrest, an around five- thousand strong mob, armed with lethal weapons, started attacking the Police Station and pelted stones on the policemen on duty. One CRPF jawan and several policemen, including the Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Singh and DIG, Western Range K.P.Singh Deo were injured in the mob attack. Police later opened fire to disperse the violent mob leading to death of one person and injuring four others.
The Deputy Commissioner of Goalpara district Mr. Utpalananda Sharma said that the situation in the curfew-bound areas is completely under control now. Army and Paramilitary forces are flag-marching in the violence-affected areas.