A victims’ forum of militancy in Assam has decided to go to court if members of all the factions of the extremist National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) are granted a general amnesty.
Various groups representing the Bodo community had raised a demand to provide general amnesty to the members of the NDFB factions after the Bodo Peace Accord was signed in New Delhi on January 27.
The Forum for Terrorist Victim Family, Assam said the Bodo people deserved the welfare envisaged in the accord, but pardoning extremist leaders “responsible for bloodshed” would encourage militancy besides disrespecting the judiciary.
“A peace treaty that lets militants who killed innocent people be treated as VIPs will encourage others to take up arms. We will write to the Chief Justice of India and seek his intervention for the sake of justice,” said the forum’s founder Dhananjoy Saikia, whose father Kamala Saikia was killed by members of the United Liberation Front of Asom in 1991.
Other members of the forum have reminded the government of the serial blasts on October 30, 2008, which killed 88 people in Guwahati and three western Assam towns. A special court had in January 2019 sentenced NDFB founder-chairman Ranjan Daimari and nine others to life imprisonment for their involvement in the blasts.
Hagrama Mohilary, the chief of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), and the All Bodo Students’ Union have asked the government to withdraw the cases against Mr. Daimari and the others. After 1,615 members of the NDFB laid down arms on January 30 in accordance with the Bodo Accord, the Assam government said a proper rehabilitation plan would be worked out for the members of all its factions.
Some 2,900 more members of the NDFB factions are scheduled to lay down their arms on February 7 at the BTC headquarters, Kokrajhar on February 7. Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visited Kokrajhar on Saturday to assess the preparations for the programme that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend.
