Home Ministry raps Assam govt for massacres

Home Ministry raps Assam govt for massacres
AJAY SURI & SAMUDRA GUPTA KASHYAP

NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI, DEC 4: The Union Home Ministry has rapped the Assam government for the fresh frenzy of violence in which over 20 non-Assamese -- mostly Bihari and Marwari settlers -- were killed in the state. However, the Mahanta government has escaped major castigation for now.

According to sources, Joint Secretary G.K. Pillai -- who was sent to Assam to assess the law and order situation there -- has, in his report, found the state government ``complacent'' over trigger-happy militants. Pillai is learnt to have suggested several drastic measures to contain the attacks. One is an increase in night-patrolling as most of the incidents took place after sunset.

Strengthening of Village Defence Committees (VDCs) is another of Pillai's recommendations. The joint secretary, beside visiting the affected areas, also interacted with the officials involved in anti-militancy measures.

Union Home Minister L.K. Advani was today slated to make a statement on Assam killings but couldn't do so as the Congress and other Opposition parties forced an adjournment in the Lok Sabha.

North Block, though, was under pressure much earlier when former Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, among others, made a beeline for Advani's office and pleaded with him to provide special protection for non-Assamese as many among the recent victims were from Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the Assam unit of the BJP has blamed both the ruling Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Opposition Congress for the deteriorating law and order situation.

Rajen Gohain, BJP state president and Lok Sabha member, said that while the ULFA was on a rampage, the Congress, instead of helping solve the crisis, was only adding fuel to fire by inciting militants and trying to get political mileage out of the massacres.

``The intentions of the Congress as well as the ULFA are the same. Both are trying to get President's Rule imposed in the state,'' Gohain said here today, adding: ``The state Congress leadership is only dreaming of capturing power by getting the government dismissed with the Assembly elections drawing closer.''

At the same time, Bijoya Chakravarty, the Lok Sabha member from Guwahati and Union Minister of State for Water Resources, has termed the AGP-led government in the state useless. ``The AGP government has proved its uselessness by failing miserably to bring the situation under control,'' Chakravarty said. In sharp contrast to what the state BJP chief Gohain said, Chakravarty alleged that there was scope to believe that the state government too had a hand in the recent killings.