From Our Special Correspondent
GUWAHATI: The Bodo Peace Accord evoked a mixed response in Assam on Monday, with supporters of the pact expressing jubilation and non-Bodo outfits staging a 12-hour bandh against the agreement even as Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal asserted that no community living in the state has anything to worry about the settlement.
Sonowal said the Bodo Peace Accord will be implemented keeping the territorial integrity of Assam intact.
“All the clauses in the Agreement will be executed with the support of all stakeholders and no community living in the state should be worried about the pact,” he said in a statement.
Sonowal said the pact will respect the sentiments of everyone and the Bodo community must proceed towards its implementation by taking everybody along.
The chief minister also hoped that the people of Assam would extend full support towards the process.
“People from all sections of the society have been extending their support to the state government’s initiatives to make Assam terrorism-free and this Accord would play a crucial role in the peace-building process,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bodo people wearing traditional attire assembled at ABSU offices and welcomed the pact by bursting crackers and distributing sweets, while agitators set vehicles on fire and burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah at several places in the BTAD.
Several prominent persons from the Bodo community expressed happiness over the pact and hoped it will usher in an era of development in the region.
However, non-Bodo organisations in Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) have warned that they would intensify their agitation if they are deprived of their rights.
Several organisations including All Assam Koch Rajbonshi Students Union (AAKRSU), All Bodoland Minority Students Union and All Adivasi Students’ Union, Oboro Suraksha Samiti and Kalita Janagoshthi Students’ Union had voiced their opposition to the fact that they were not taken aboard before signing of the peace accord.
Speaking to The Shillong Times on Monday afternoon, AAKRSU general secretary, Gokul Barman said “the peace accord was inked in a haphazard manner without consulting the views and opinions of the non-Bodo organisations of BTAD”.
“We therefore oppose the accord as it is one-sided and imposed on us. The non-Bodo people of BTAD are apprehensive that in the wake of the agreement inked today, they would be deprived of their political, land, economic and educational rights,” Barman said.
“The enhanced powers to be given now to the Bodoland Terrritorial Council under the agreement is akin to a separate state, we feel. So we fear that the situation might aggravate for the non-Bodo people who are insecure today as opposed to peace which the accord has been signed,” he said.