GUWAHATI:
Condemning Wednesday’s police firing on protesters in Guwahati, outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has asked the Tarun Gogoi-led ruling Congress government if it has the guts to evict illegal Bangladeshi migrants who have encroached upon forest land in the state.
“The Tarun Gogoi government indiscriminately fired upon people who launched a democratic movement demanding their right to land. Does the government have the guts to evict the illegal Bangladeshi migrants and tea industrialists who encroa-ched upon huge chunks of forest land?” the anti-talks faction of ULFA, led by its ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Bar-uah, said in an email statement on Thursday.
Officials insist that the illegal settlements in Guwahati were degrading the environment and contributing to flash floods and mudslides which in recent years claimed many lives. Countering this, the ULFA asked if it was so, then how the Gogoi government had allotted over 800 bighas of land to the industrialists on hilltop.
“We appeal to the people to stand up against such terrorism by colonial India,” the outfit added.
Three persons were killed and over fifty others, including journalists, injured when protesters demanding land rights clashed with the police.
