GUWAHATI: At a time the people in Assam are hitting the streets in protest against the Centre’s move to pass the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, a leader of influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has embraced the gun to protect and secure a sovereign Assam.
Pankaj Pratim Dutta joined the Paresh Baruah faction of United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent (ULFA-I) a month after he had gone missing while on a trip to Guwahati. He was the vice-president of
AASU’s Dergaon unit.
That Dutta joined the ULFA-I was known after he had shared a video of him on social media holding a gun and narrating the reasons why he joined the outfit.
“I have joined the ULFA-I on my own volition. I apologise to AASU members in Dergaon for taking this decision without informing them. I firmly believe that to be able to protect the existence of Assam,
there is no other alternative. We need Assam’s sovereignty to protect its existence. That’s the reason I joined the ULFA-I. We, the Assamese people, were once warriors but now, we are forced to stoop to the Government of India even for petty issues,” Dutta said in the video.
He asked the Government of India not to belittle the handful of ULFA guerillas saying they were troubling the Indian Army and they would keep doing so.
This is the first instance of a member of AASU joining an insurgent group in the past 15 years.
“There have been numerous such cases in the past. However, in the past 15 years or so, no one from AASU, except him, joined the ULFA,” AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath told TNIE.
Dutta’s joining the outfit comes amidst statewide protests against the Citizenship Bill. It seeks to grant citizenship to the persecuted non-Muslim immigrants of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who
migrated to India till December 31, 2014. The Assamese organisations say the bill is aimed at dumping lakhs of Hindu Bangladeshis (read Bengali Hindu immigrants) in Assam.