GUWAHATI: Seventy-six families of the martyrs of the Assam Agitation on Wednesday returned the mementos conferred on them by the state government two years back as a mark of protest against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which the government intends to pass in Rajya Sabha.
The families under the banner of the Sadou Asom Jatiya Swahid Parial Samannayrakhi Parishad staged a rally from Swahid Nyash Bhawan (AASU office) near Latasil to the Kamrup (metropolitan) deputy commissioner’s office at Kachari here and handed over the mementos to the chief minister through the deputy commissioner.
Apart from over 855 martyr families as its members, the Parishad also comprises 3,000 persons who were injured or rendered physically challenged during the six-year Agitation since 1979.
The Assam government had conferred the awards to the families of the martyrs at a function on the Veterinary College playground in Khanapara here on the occasion of Swahid Divas on December 10, 2016. An amount of Rs 5 lakh and a memento was presented to the next of kin of each of the martyrs’ families on that day.
Khargeswar Talukdar had become the first martyr of the Assam Movement on December 10, 1979.
“Family members of 200 martyrs of the Assam Agitation were present at the rally while 76 of them handed over the mementos at the DC’s office. All the mementos presented at the government shraddhanjali programme here would be returned by the martyr’s kin across the districts in a phased manner,” Rajen Deka, president of the Parishad, formed in 1989, told The Shillong Times on Wednesday.
Deka further said the move to hand over the mementos was a collective decision to oppose a contentious legislation which would facilitate the entry of foreigners into Assam. “As many as 855 martyrs had laid down their lives during the anti-foreigners movement and we cannot let that go in vain,” he said.
Asked why the cash component was not returned, the Parishad’s secretary, Chandrakanta Talukdar said, “The families had spent portions of the cash award in various public programmes and functions commemorating the martyrs over the past two years. So we decided to return the mementos, which were symbolic and conferred to honour the sacrifice of the martyrs.”