The Assam unit of the Congress party has issued a show-cause notice to one of its MLAs for a provocative statement linked to an eviction drive in the Darrang district.
The party has also asked Sherman Ali Ahmed, who represents the Baghbar Assembly constituency, to explain accusations that he has been acting as an agent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The spectre of eviction that haunts Assam’s Bengali Muslims
Mr. Ahmed had on September 30 justified the killing of eight Assamese youths in the Garukhuti-Dhalpur area almost 40 years ago. The area was where police shot and killed two persons, one of them a minor, during an eviction drive on September 23.
The government intends to free 77,000 bighas in the area allegedly encroached by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
The notice served by Congress general secretary Bobbeeta Sharma said the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the State Congress took note of Mr. Ahmed’s statement with “communal overtones having great propensity to destroy the social harmony of our State”.
Congress MP Abdul Khaleque slams eviction drive in Assam
Also questioning his closeness to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Congress directed Mr. Ahmed to reply to State party president Bhupen Kumar Borah within three days of receiving the show-cause notice.
The BJP and its ally the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) slammed the Congress MLA for being “insensitive” by referring to the eight “martyrs” of the Assam agitation as “ghatak (assassins)”. Members of the AGP, which was formed by students leading that agitation from 1979-85, also burnt effigies of Mr. Ahmed across the State.
