GUWAHATI: Whether the Narendra Modi government will seek to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 or not is something which remains to be seen. However, the controversy arising out of it has already benefitted the Paresh Baruah faction of outlawed insurgent group United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA-Independent).
The police said five youths, including a local leader of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), joined the rebel group in the past one month. The AASU leader, Pankaj Pratim Dutta, said he chose to embrace the gun to protect his motherland.
“I have joined the ULFA as I strongly believe that only it can protect the existence of Assam and the Assamese people,” Dutta said in a social media post.
READ | Citizenship Bill fallout: Suspected ULFA rebels gun down 5 Bengalis in Assam's Tinsukia
As the Centre seeks to pass the Citizenship Bill to legalise the stay of non-Muslim immigrants of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a growing belief, especially among Assamese youths, that only the ULFA can protect Assam and its land, language, culture etc.
Recently, Anup Chetia, who is a leader of ULFA’s pro-talks faction which is in peace mode and negotiating with the Central government, said “a lot of youths” from some districts of Lower Assam had joined Paresh Baruah’s group in recent months.
The police are alive to the situation but virtually helpless. Most families do not speak up about their children joining the extremist group for the fear of being harassed by the police and security forces.
“We have learnt from various sources about five youths joining the group. Some others in Tinsukia district were caught while they were heading to join the outfit (which operates out of Myanmar). A strong pro-ULFA opinion is building up on the social media. Youngsters are saying ULFA zindabad. However, the perception that a lot of youths joined the group is just a conjecture,” he said.
Assam’s Director General of Police, Kuladhar Saikia, told The New Indian Express that they were probing it.
“We have asked the officers in the districts and the special branch of the police to conduct an enquiry (to find out how many youths joined the outfit). Sometimes, families file missing reports with the police after their children go missing. This triggers a suspicion that they have joined the ULFA. However, sometimes it emerges that they had left the state in search of jobs,” Saikia added.
The prevailing pro-ULFA mood in Assam is similar to that of the 1980s when a large number of Assamese youths had joined the ULFA to fight for Assam’s sovereignty in the wake of the historic six-year long Assam Agitation against the illegal immigrants.
For the past few months, Assam has been witnessing protests against the Citizenship Bill on a daily basis. The protests have united around 70 organisations. These organisations fear that the Assamese will be minorities and destroyed if the Centre passes the bill to dump lakhs of “Hindu Bangladeshis” (read Bengali Hindu immigrants) in Assam. They pointed out that the bill’s passage would render the ongoing updation of National Register of Citizens (NRC) meaningless.
As per the NRC, the immigrants, irrespective of faith who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, will be viewed as illegal immigrants and deported. The Citizenship Bill seeks to protect the non-Muslim immigrants who arrived till December 31, 2014.