Author: A Staff Reporter
Publication: Assam Tribune
Date: April 19, 2005
URL: http://www.assamtribune.com/apr1905/main.html
Noted social activist Deven Dutta
today criticised Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for failing to attend a joint
press conference of North East Chief Ministers in New Delhi following their
meeting with the Prime Minister last week. He said that Gogoi had deliberately
avoided the press conference, as he did not want to be embarrassed by the
fact that five of the Chief Ministers have expressed disappointment with
Assam for failing to check infiltration of Bangladeshis through its territory.
Speaking to this reporter this afternoon,
Dutta pointed out that Gogoi and his Tripura counterpart Manik Sarkar were
the only ones who failed to attend the scheduled joint press conference
of the North East Chief Ministers. He said that while Sarkar's absence
from the press conference, that focussed on infiltration of Bangladeshis
to the region, was understandable for "ethnic reasons", there is no reason
why Gogoi should have avoided it.
Dutta said that Gogoi avoided the
conference, as he did not want to be embarrassed by the stand taken by
the five attending Chief Ministers. Gogoi's counterparts, Dutta said, had
held Assam's weak stand against infiltration responsible for the increasing
presence of Bangladeshis in the region. "Tarun Gogoi played safe," he alleged.
Dutta said that the State Government
has taken a protective and indulgent stance towards Bangladeshi infiltrators.
He said that this is so because of the ruling Congress' political interests.
"The government is soft and inactive" he said, adding that this is exactly
why Bangladesh has not felt much pressure.
Expressing concern that Bangladeshi
infiltrators have become audacious enough to tease and attack a husori
troupe at Merapani on April 14, Dutta warned that such attacks on Assamese
people in their own state would only increase in the future. He said the
situation is "very portentous and ominous". Places like Bonda, Hatigaon,
Basistha, Beltola and Noonmati in Guwahati and areas like Dibrugarh, Jorhat,
Sibsagar, Howly, Barpeta, Dhemaji and Lakhimpur will witness attacks on
the Assamese people by Bangladeshis.
Dutta also said that till now political
level talks between India and Bangladesh have skirted the infiltration
issue, concentrating, instead, on peripheral issues.
