GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi blamed the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) for the recent rioting in the state and denied the involvement of Bangladeshi infiltrators. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has meanwhile sent a three-member team led by union minister of state for home Shakeel Ahmed to visit the riot-hit areas.
The chief minister said he would seek a CBI probe into the clashes in Udalguri and Darrang districts and the hoisting of the Pakistani flag in a Bodo village even while denying the involvement of Bangladeshi infiltrators. He said there were reports that the NDFB was involved in the clashes, a charge the outfit denies.
If the charge was established, the government would call off the ceasefire with the militant outfit, Gogoi said.
Government spokesman and health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, also blamed the NDFB and said the outfit had, in its charter of demands submitted to the Centre on September 20,described both non-tribal and illegal migrants as encroachers in Bodoland.
Muslims in a relief camp, too, alleged that Bodos had been pressurising them to move out of their area for some time. When the violence began, NDFB cadres dressed in army fatigues attacked them.
The NDFB, however, called it a government conspiracy to malign it. Others pointed out that the violence began after Bangladeshi infiltrators attacked villages a day after Eid. The NDFB had not taken any decision to attack but some of its cadres went to defend their villages when clashes erupted.
The Aasu and the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU), too, blame the violence on Bangladeshi immigrants.
A three-member Congress team led by union minister of state for home Shakeel Ahmed and accompanied by former Arunchal Pradesh chief minister Mukut Mithi and Congress MP from West Bengal A H Khan Choudhury will prepare a report to submit to the Congress president.
