NEW DELHI: Inspite of the fact that the chief minister of Assam has attacked the Indian government time and again and recently put forward conclusive proof that RAW was behind the trouble in the state, the effort is destabilize his government from Delhi goes on.

Also radical militants appear to be taking control of a separatist Movement in the north eastern Indian state of Assam, nudging aside separatist leaders who signed a trace with the state and national governments last month.

Since a truce was signed Aug 28, 70 people have been killed in Violence associated with the separatists’, who are members of the Bodo tribe. Last week, 35 Muslims were killed in an attack by the Bodos, the largest tribe in the Tegions with about 2 million members out of a population of 22 million.

Assamese officials and others familiar with the northeast say that the initiative is slipping out of the hands of Upendra Brahma the leader of the All Bodo Students Union, which signed the accord and has been at the center of Bodo separatism.

Significantly Brahma and his chief aides have not even visited the areas where the Bodo movement is strongest in Assam since they agreed to suspend their violent agitation last month. Reports from the state say there is much resentment against them in their community for stopping the movement.

The radical leaders responsible for the new violence are not well known but are believed to be part of a group known as the Bodo Volunteer Force.

The agitation for a separate Bodo state began toward the end of 1987 and has resulted in ore than 650 deaths, including more than 350 this year.

When they agreed to the truce the students said they were not dropping their commitment to a separate state, but said they were suspending their agitation to create peaceful conditions for an overall settlement.

“They are going to use the opportunity to reorganize themselves, send arms from one place to another, prepare for the future” said a senior Assamese government official who attended the peace negotiations and is familiar with the situation.

This official, who asked not to be identified and others said that the Assamese government believes that Indian intelligence agencies are assisting the Bodo agitators. The state government is controlled by the regional Assam People’s Party.

Assam Will Burn Again

The charge of Government assistance has been denied by New Delhi but Prafulla Mahanta the state chief minister said in a recent interview that he believes that some Indian intelligence officers have helped the Bodos with money and arms training and that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Government wants to destabilize and topple his administration.

The Bodo student leaders say that they will wait only until the end of this year for their separate state.

“Otherwise Assam will bum agin,” said Mr. Braham in an interview. He added that he and his

followers were prepared to start an armed insurgency against the New Delhi Government.

The New Delhi government and Mr. Mahanta say that they will not allow a separate state to be carved out of Assam an ethnically diyerse region at the foot of the Himalayas. the state is dominated by the sprawling Brahmaputra ValJey with rich agricultural land, tropical rain forests oil wells, tea gardens and wildfire sanctuaries.

Four ethnic groups in Assam have mounted separatist insurgences, fearing their small nationalities will be swamped by the rest of the country.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 22, 1989