Killing of innocent Muslims in Assam decried
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, May 06 2014:
North East Dialogue Forum (NEDF), a Network of NGOs and Civil Society Organizations in the North East Region working on the issue of human rights, conflict transformation, environment, etc, has expressed shock over the increasing acts of violence committed by armed organizations in Assam.
In a statement issued by its Convenor U.Nobokishore, NEDF said it sternly condemned the mass killing of innocent civilians and gutting down their houses in Assam's Kokrajhar and Baksa district on 1 and 2 May of 2014 by the armed groups.
Killing of unarmed innocent civilians most of whom are women and children in the wee hour is condemnable by all sections of the people.
Due to such fierce attacks, thousands of innocent civilian have been rendered homeless and displaced.
Such kind of attack to the innocent civilians in these particular areas is not the first time, but many attacks of such kinds have taken place in the recent past.
The question is why the government of India and Assam not taken up any steps to stop recurrence of such attacks rather than remaining a mute spectator.
If the government has taken up precautionary measures in these vulnerable areas, many lives of innocent civilians could have been saved, Nobokishore observed.
He further appealed to the Governments of India and Assam to take up tangible action against those who commit crime against innocent civilian and set up alternative arrangement to thwart the recurrence of the violence in those conflict prone areas; to find out the causes of the conflict by appointing a Commission of Enquiry which would include leaders of the different ethnic communities of the affected areas and to solve the problems of illegal immigrants permanently in consultation with all Chief Ministers of all North Eastern States.
The Forum also called upon the insurgency groups operating in different parts of the North East Region to sign the Common Article III of the Geneva Convention and the Government of India to implement the same forthwith along with repealing Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act 1958 .
Popular Front of India, Manipur State has also strongly condemned the killing of innocent Muslims by Bodo militants in Kokrajha and Baksa districts of Assam.
In a statement issued by its PRO, general secretary of the Front OMA Salam said that by this attack on innocent Muslims, the militants are giving the message that they would go to any extent of violence to achieve their evil design.
He also blamed the State Government's culpability for the continued violence in the State and said that the Government is not taking any effective measures to disarm the India's most dangerous separatist militias which posses highly sophisticated weaponry and is allowing functioning unopposed.
He also criticized the accusation by the militants and a section of the media that all the victims were migrant Muslims and said that such unwarranted accusation will only mislead the general public and indirectly justified the sporadic killings.
In this regard, Salam pointed out that between 1997 and 2011, the Foreign Tribunal courts of Assam disposed 83,471 cases of accused migrants in which 77,874 cases were declared as genuine Indian citizens, which is 93.4 percent.
Only 6.6 percent were unable to produce their proof of Indian citizenship because all their possessions including documents had been destroyed by the Bodo militants in similar attacks and they were declared as migrants.
Popular Front of India appeals to the Union Government and the State Government of Assam to take immediate steps to permanently settle the issue of migrants on legal grounds and immediately disarm the anti-national elements of BTAD and provide adequate security to the lives of Indian citizens.
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