ASSAM BLASTS : SC Warning as early as '05

NEW DELHI: “Assam is facing external aggression and internal disturbance.” This comment from the Supreme Court came not after the serial blasts that killed scores but more than three years ago on July 12, 2005. It had issued an unambiguous warning to the UPA government at the Centre and the Tarun Gogoi government in the state: if massive illegal migration of Bangladeshis into Assam was not stopped immediately and foreigners not deported, the situation would soon go out of control. Both the governments paid scant attention to the ominous signals that the Supreme Court read from the November 8, 1998 report of then governor Lt Gen S K Sinha, who had prepared it after a thorough inspection of border areas and districts, discussions with the Indian high commissioner in Bangladesh and talks with political leaders. What Lt Gen Sinha’s report brought out before the apex court in 2005 was the grim ground reality of Assam. His report stated: “The illegal migrants coming into India after 1971 have been almost exclusively Muslims... Muslim population in Assam has shown a rise of 77.42% from what it was in 1971. Hindu population has risen by nearly 41.89%.” Expressing concern over Muslims attaining a majority in district after district, the then governor had warned against complacency. He had said: “There is a tendency to view illegal migration into Assam as a regional matter affecting only the people of Assam. It’s more dangerous dimension of greatly undermining our national security is ignored.” He added: “Pakistan’s ISI has been active in Bangladesh supporting militant movements in Assam. Muslim militant organisations have mushroomed in Assam and there are reports of some 50 Assamese Muslim youths having gone for training to Afghanistan and Kashmir.” He had further warned against mixing religion and the state’s policy towards illegal migrants and said: “The dangerous consequences of large scale illegal migration from Bangladesh, both for the people of Assam and more for the nation as a whole, need to be emphatically stressed. No misconceived and mistaken notion of secularism should be allowed to come in the way of doing so.” To protect the territorial integrity and prevent Assamese from being reduced to a minority, the SC had directed stringent measures to detect the illegal migrants and deport them, a direction which was blatantly disobeyed.

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