Bodo vs Bangladeshi

[G.Subramaniam]

There’s another twist in the tale. A section says that the riots have been sparked off to bring in more illegal Bangladeshis into Assam, put them up at various relief camps under the guise of riot victims and later get them “re-settled” by the government as “genuine Indian citizens” in the name of rehabilitation. This, they fear, might be a part of the larger agenda of radical groups. Dhubri district, which saw relatively less violence compared to BTAD and is overwhelmingly a Muslim-majority district, has 144,214 Muslim inmates in 131 relief camps and not a single Bodo.



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The Bodoland Territorial Council deputy chief, Kampa Borgoyari, had recently expressed surprise that Badruddin Ajmal, chief of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), an Assam-based political party which espouses the cause of Muslims, had claimed that 4 lakh Muslims got displaced in the Kokrajhar riots when, according to the 2001 census, the total Muslim population in Kokrajhar was around 2 lakh. If Ajmal is true, it would mean there had been large-scale influx of Bangladeshis in BTAD, which may have given rise to tension. The identity of these people needs to be investigated, as BTC chief Hagrama Mohilary has demanded. Ajmal, also a cleric who runs a Rs 200-crore perfume business, has been accused of using his religious network to create trouble in other parts of the country. A top official from the Union home ministry was quoted by a local television channel as saying, in the wake of that Mumbai incident, that “Ajmal rang up and asked people to create disturbances in other parts of the country”. However, the official later retracted his statement. - above url