GUWAHATI: Hundreds of All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) activists had to abort a torch march (jor somodol) against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) after police put barricades on the road in front of the union’s office here to prevent the protesters from proceeding any further on Friday evening.
The influential students union had lined up a three-day state-wide programme ahead of and during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (on Saturday) and Union Home Minister Amit Shah (on Sunday) to Assam, starting with the torch march across all the district units of AASU.
“It is strange and rather incomprehensible that our members have been stopped by a huge police force from taking out a non-violent and peaceful torch march from Swahid Nyash Bhawan here. We condemn this undemocratic attempt by the government to what has always been a democratic movement against a contentious Act,” AASU Chief Adviser Samujjal Bhattacharjya told reporters at the union’s office here.
The AASU leader said that such action would only embolden its movement against CAA.
“No matter how much force they use to thwart our agitation, our movement against CAA will continue and only grow stronger,” Bhattacharjya said.
“Tomorrow, when the Prime Minister will visit the state, our members will wear black cloth around their faces. On January 24, we will hoist black flags and burn copies of CAA across the state,” he said.
Earlier, the AASU leaders even confronted senior Assam Police officers for using barricades to stop the torch rally.
The Centre had constituted the high-level committee on July 16, 2019, for recommending measures to implement Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.
“A year has passed since the recommendations by the high-level committee were submitted to the government but no measures have been taken to provide safeguards to the indigenous people of Assam as was promised by the Prime Minister and Home Minister,” Bhattacharjya rued.