Assam’s Karbi Anglong district is witnessing large-scale violence over the demand for a separate state. Protestors have set fire to government offices and damaged railway tracks. The Autonomous Council headquarters were stormed. Near curfew was imposed on Diphu cutting the Guwahati-Dibrugarh link. Police fired at several places. The AIR station came under attack but security forces prevented miscreants from setting it afire. Violence gradually spread impeding the movement of the police and the fire brigade. A Sarba Siksha Abhiyan office was also on fire. A 36 hour bandh called by the All Koch Rajbankshi Students Union demanded a separate Kamtapur state and it affected several lives in lower Assam. Educational institutions remained closed in Dhubri, Bongaigaon and Barpeta.
Evidently, the Karbi Anglong agitation showed ripples of Telengana. The violence took the Centre and the Assam government by surprise. Trouble was anticipated in the Bodo areas but there was no intelligence input on Karbi Anglong. The argument of the protestors is that when they made their demand for a new state, the Centre told them that there was no provision for it. The creation of Telengana knocks the bottom out of the official stand, they claimed. The Karbis want a separate Bill for the state of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. Thr region has the highest concentration of militant outfits. The separatist movement in the region has been on for 50 years. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said an emphatic no to the balkanization of the state. But after Telengana he is on a sticky wicket. The All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) has also threatened a do-or-die movement for a separate state of Bodoland. Assam appears to be a tinder-box.
