New Delhi: After a break of five months, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) resumed its protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Assam, according to news reports.
Reports said the student body took out a massive motorcycle rally in Dibrugarh, the home town of chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, to protest the Centre’s decision to include Assam within the ambit of the Act even though it violates one of the primary clauses of the Assam Accord.
The bike rally, comprising hundreds of AASU members, began the protest march from the town’s Chowkidingee area and pass through the major roads before stopping in front of the chief minister’s house in Lakhi Nagar area to raise slogans against the CAA. According to a news report, “Caught by surprise, security personnel scrambled and threw a protective ring around the CM’s residence.”
A local news outfit quoted AASU Dibrugarh district general secretary Sankor Jyoti Baruah as saying that the street protests “will once again begin in full force”.
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“As we have said before, Assam will not bear the burden of a single Bangladeshi entering the state after 1971, be it Hindu or Muslim,” Baruah said.
The protests, which broke out in early December last year in major parts of the state, were suspended due to the restrictions imposed to curb the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. At least four youths were killed in alleged police firing during the protests.
In February this year, apart from protests in other parts, Dibrugarh too saw a huge rally with thousands gathered at a local school compound. Shops, banks and business establishments remained closed that day. Addressing the rally, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharjee said, “I would like to ask PM Modi and home minister Shah to explain that if CAA is bad for areas covered under Inner Line Permit and Sixth Schedule, then how is it good for the rest of the northeastern states?”
In an interview in January, AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi told The Wire, “In meetings, rallies, mass gatherings, we have been asked the question, who should the Assamese vote for in 2021.”
Recently, Gogoi categorically told a local news channel that the student body is looking to form a political party hinged on its stand against the CAA among other issues to contest elections in the 2021 assembly polls. A number of organisations from across the state, united by their stand against the CAA, have already come together under another outfit, Anchalik Gana Morcha.