Guwahati: Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday pressed for a CBI inquiry into January 29 killing of 11 villagers inside Behali Forest Reserve in north Assam along the inter-state boundary with Arunachal Pradesh.
Eleven people were killed in the firing by unidentified miscreants while seven others went missing in a remote village in Behali reserve forest.
Gogoi said CBI inquiry was necessary as the issue involved people from both the states- Assam and Arunachal Pradesh and informed that Assam government had already made request to Union Home Ministry for a CBI inquiry.
Gogoi said the possibility of involvement of Maoists in the Behali forest area inside Assam along the inter-state boundary with Arunachal Pradesh firing incident cannot be ruled out.
He said Maoists had set up links with insurgent groups in Assam and rest of the North East with the intention to destablise the region and thereby the country. He said foreign forces might be behind the design.
“I have been talking about the growing presence of Maoists in the state for the last five years but the government of India is taking a serious note of it now,” Gogoi said adding that special development schemes are necessary for vulnerable under developed border areas to check the spread of Maoist threat which can’t be neutralized only through use of forces.
He said his government had asked the Centre to declare nine of its districts – Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Cachar and Karimganj – as Maoist affected so that special development funds are provided by the Centre for these districts. “The Centre recently did not accept our proposal, but we will against submit it before the Centre for review of its decision,” Gogoi said.
Gogoi appealed to the people enforcing an economic blockade against Arunachal Pradesh since January 30 last to lift the blockade as the general people were made to suffer because of misdeeds of the a few miscreants.
Meanwhile, additional forces have been deployed in the Behali area, where the ‘situation is peaceful but tensed’. “We have to increase the presence of security forces by setting up more police outposts not just in Behali but also other such border areas, where development has not taken place and communication bottlenecks exist,” Gogoi said.
