ULFA created room for Bangla migrants

ULFA created room for Bangla migrants Staff reporter GUWAHATI, Dec 5 - The banned ULFA’s three-decade-long rebellion against India and the mindless killing and depredation resulted in the expulsion from Assam 1.5 million Biharis and various sections of people hailing from northern India and Rajasthan. Highlighting this disturbing figure, senior journalist DN Chakravartty today said that while the patriotic Indians were forced to leave the soil of Assam, the ULFA paved the way and spread the red carpet for the entry of over five million pro-east Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals into Assam. Chakravartty who was addressing the meeting of the Octogenarians’ Club of Guwahati held under the presidentship of Prof Mahesh Bhuyan at Pensioners’ Bhawan, said that the reign of terror let loose by the ULFA brigade caused 50,000 rickshaw-pullers, five lakh cultivators, four-and-a-half lakh masons, carpenters, skilled labourers and a few lakh cobblers, earth-cutters, handcart-pullers, washermen, small traders, boatmen and fishermen leave Assam between 1985 and 2010. Referring to the collusion between the ULFA and India’s neighbouring countries like China and Pakistan, Chakravartty observed that prosperity of Siliguri town owes primarily to the flight of capital from Assam, and referred to the “manufactured movement” engineered by persons with Marxist leanings and questionable loyalty that had now been raising a hue and cry in the country about the “endangerment of life and property of minorities.” Chakravartty said that nations harbouring hostility to India would take advantage of India’s present atmosphere of internal dissention. He condemned the mischief and anti-national activity engineered by “a section of the manipulated press and intellectuals in falsely lionising the ULFA as the saviour of the Assamese people.” Chakravartty also spoke on the utility of the Lower Subansiri hydro-power project, saying that with alteration in its structure and compositions, and sharing of benefits, the dam should be allowed to come up. Ramanikanta Deka, Prabhat Chandra Goswami, Nagendranath Goswami, Amal Chandra Hazarika, Dr Sarat Chandra Dutta, Surendra Kumar Baruah, Radha Bora, Dr Malati Baruah, Dr TK Bhattacharya, Subhash Goswami, and nonagenarian freedom fighter Puspa Bora, while participating in the discussion, stressed the need for educating the Assamese masses about the incalculable damage done by the ULFA in halting the advancement of Assam and opening the floodgates for large-scale Bangladeshi infiltration. The participants also expressed concern over the prevailing climate of social and political tension in the country “when the saner voices have been subdued by organised band of anti-national elements.” They also stressed the need for major rectification in the entire construction schedule of the Lower Subansiri dam. A meeting of the engineers will be held at Pensioners’ Bhawan at 10.30 am on December 27 to discuss the utility of the Lower Subansiri dam and its inevitable modification