AASU dares Assam CM to issue ultimatum to Bangladeshis

Guwahati, Aug 21 (UNI) The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) today dared Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to issue a warning against all illegal Bangladeshis to leave the state voluntarily and alleged that the government was trying to 'communalize' the issue of detection and deportation of Bangladeshis.

They also challenged the state government to hold back all the suspected people who have entered the state from Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in detention camps for proper verification of their citizenship claims, adding that Mr Gogoi and three of his spokespersons should resign after a suspected national admitted in court that he was a Bangladeshi and the Congress was protecting him.

Addressing a press meet here, AASU advisor Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharyya said, ''The chief minister had said he would resign if any person held by the AASU proved to be a Bangladeshi. The man that our activists had held in Sivsagar district last week had himself admitted before the court that he was from Bangladesh and had entered the state through Tripura by bribing the BSF personnel at the international border.'' ''He should now resign voluntarily, though we are not demanding it,'' he added.

Taking a dig at three of Mr Gogoi's ministerial colleagues-- Dr Himanta Biswa Sharma, Mr Ripun Bora and Mr Rockybul Hussain, for their comments of the AASU during a recent press conference, the AASU leader said, ''They should also tender their resignations now that their claims have fallen flat on the face.'' Challenging Mr Gogoi to issue a public warning to all Bangladeshis to leave the state immediately voluntarily, Dr Bhattacharyya said, ''He should publicize such a warning through mass media and follow it up with real action, if he has the real will to detect and deport the illegal migrants.'' The AASU also dared the chief minister to detain the people from the neighbouring states in camps and verify their nationality through proper channels.

Pointing out that the state government had submitted during talks with AASU recently it could send 3,000 cases for verification to the foreigners' detection tribunal in five months, the AASU advisor questioned how the chief minister could give a clean chit to 3,000 suspected nationals from other states within a matter of hours.

To the three ministers' statement that the AASU was 'victimizing' people of a minority community in the name of Bangladeshi detection, AASU president Sankar Prasad Rai said, ''The government is dragging in the communal angle to divert attention from the main issue.'' He said the AASU wanted all Bangladeshis, irrespective of religion, to be deported.

On BJP's stand that Hindu migrants from Bangladesh were 'refugees', Dr Bhattacharyya said, ''Assam cannot take the load of so many foreigners. The BJP can take them to the states ruled by them and settle them there.'' ''For us, all Bangladeshis are the same, irrespective of religion,'' he added.

UNI