Literary body, students question border fence delay

Asam Sahitya Sabha, the highest socio-literary body in the state, has expressed its anguish over the inordinate delay...

Asam Sahitya Sabha, the highest socio-literary body in the state, has expressed its anguish over the inordinate delay in completion of the construction of barbed-wire fence along the India-Bangladesh border in Assam and has asked the Centre to complete it as early as possible. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), too, has aired its disgust over non-completion of the border fence and demanded that the task be completed by March 31.

“There has been an inordinate delay in this task, that was enshrined in the Assam Accord signed in 1985. It looks like a deliberate delay,” said AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya.

The Sahitya Sabha last weekend organised a national seminar in Delhi to highlight the unsolved issue of detection and deportation of Bangladeshi infiltrators from the state and suggested use of photo identity cards on an experimental basis.

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“Most stringent possible measures must be taken immediately to prevent further infiltration. This includes complete sealing of the India-Bangladesh border with immediate effect and imposition of night curfew along the border,” the Sabha said in its resolution in Delhi.

The border fence was to be originally completed by December 31, 2006, but remained incomplete even 15 months after the deadline, with the state Government — which is the implementing agency — admitting that a little over 10 per cent of the task was yet to be completed.

The two organisations have also taken strong exception to the fact that updating of National Register of Citizens (NRC), announced by the Government in 2005 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s quashing of the controversial IMDT Act, has not progressed either.

The Centre last week stated that the Assam Government had sought more time to submit its proposals for modalities to determine citizenship while updating the NRC.

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The NRC was prepared in 1951, but the Assam Government has said on record that no copies of the vital document were available for several of the districts that touch the Bangladesh border.

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