Ethnic violence in Assam

 Assam is burning again. Ethnic violence spreaded outside Kokrajhar district. Violence spreaded Chirang, Dhuburi some other districts also. People are attacked and houses are set ablazed. Till now at least 25 people have reported been killed & thousands become homeless  in these clashes. While we are writing this blog some BODO villages are set ablazed nearby Bilasipara town. Administration is trying hard to control the situation, but not able to control the situation properly in affected areas because of less armed forces.    

Well, that was the news of 23^th July, Monday, till evening. Because of some reasons I couldn’t complete this blog. But what I witnessed at night in the same day and till noon of next day, i.e. on 24^th July, Tuesday at the Bilasipara town were matter of great concern, which I am going to explain briefly below.

We heard that the whole day several meetings were arranged nearby Bilasipara town toward the old river Gaurang. At the end of the day lot of people were seen gathered at the Puranibazar area and around the bank of the old river. A message was coming that those people are ready to go to attack a Bodo village nearby Bilasipara town, which is in the North side of highway. At night at around 11.45 pm(tuesday) we start to hear large crowd's shout delivering slogan “Allah ho Akbar”. Around 20,000 aggressive people formed the crowd. Their procession continued for around one hour. At around 2.30am night we went to bed to take a nap. Next morning the whole area tensed up. At around 12pm(Tuesday) again we got the sound of same slogan with greater intense. Than the crown’s procession marched through the Puranibazar Beltoli link road and the scene was frightening enough to remember the civil wars of some West Asian & African countries. The scene also freshened up the riots of Assam at Nellie in the year 1983, thousands of people of one particular community died in that massacre. It is like the people of the same community will never forget that incident & always try to take revenge for that massacre against other communities. Anyway, the mob was carrying spears, khukries, machetes, other sharp bamboo sticks, other sticks, giving slogans continuously, marching towards national highway , the other side of which some Bodo villages exists. Few persons entered to our old home & took one bamboo which was cut & kept there for some work. When we & our sister-in-law protested that, some people came back to us & ordered us to go back and to shut up. They took that bamboo, made sharp sticks with it & went up. We were just few seconds away from getting killed!!

 At least 50,000 people took part in that procession, showed their flagitious instinct against Bodo people & were ready to do anything they want. We could read their eyes, it was so frightening. As mentioned, they went to the nearby Bodo villages, set the houses ablazed & continued going on up to Salcocha area; according to report.

Now, the matter is not those people, the matter is the role of local administration! We saw that it Akhil Gogoi, Ramdev or Anna Hazare want to arrange some meeting, the administration will atop them doing that at any cost. But, very surprisingly, in this kind of tense situation how come a care free mob can come out to street with weapons and killer instinct, not stopped by any force & that also within curfew declaration? You can’t believe that "a single police personal was not seen on the street or anywhere" & till this time, while we are updating this blog(12.30am, 25th July) no police person & any other person from administration came to stand with us. Though other communities are not the target, but at any time, anything can happen Bilasipara area. Even a tiny spark of intolerance can erupt a great volcano in our area at this time & there will be no force to stop any group of miscreants in this part of Assam.

Somebody may say that this is a general view about a situation. But this the real picture of law & order situation of Gogoi’s developed & peaceful Assam! Ironically Mr. Gogoi is heading Assam’s Home Department. May God save us!