GUWAHATI, July 2 ? The Assam-Nagaland Border Co-ordination Students? Union ? a joint platform of the Golaghat district units of the All Assam Students? Union, All Bodo Students? Union, Assam Tea Tribes Students? Association and the All Assam Gorkha Students? Union ? will observe a 100-hour fast from 9 am of July 9 at Golaghat town demanding permanent settlement to the people of Doyang areas. The Co-ordination Committee has also demanded peaceful resolution of the border dispute with Nagaland, security to the life and property of the people living in the inter-State boundary areas and developmental activities by the State Government in these areas.
The issue of granting permanent settlement to the people of these areas is in no way linked with the impasse on the inter-State border with Nagaland, claimed the Co-ordination Committee president Diganta Saikia and its secretary Ramesh Chandra Boro at a press conference here this morning. The people who have been settling in these areas have been doing so since the early part of the 20th century and the Government of Assam has been conducting drives to evict these people repeatedly, they alleged.
During one such drive, a Class-IX student of Doyang High School, Nilima Borah, had to die miserably in 1974. But on the other side of the border, which is also described as a ?disputed area?, the Nagaland Government has been undertaking development activities taking advantage of the weakness of the Assam Government, said the Co-ordination Committee officebearers. Addressing the mediapersons, AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya said that the so-called reserve forest of Doyang has now become a densely populated area. This area should be de-reserved now and the people settling there should be granted permanent settlement without any delay, he said.
ABSU president Rabiram Narzary also laid stress on granting land patta to these people and said that the joint struggle under the aegis of the Co-ordination Committee would continue till the demands were conceded to. He also said that the resolution of the border dispute with Nagaland would help promotion of pace and brotherhood among people of Assam and Nagaland. AASU president Prabin Boro, AGSU president Bhaskar Dahal and Golaghat district unit secretary of the ATTSA, Kumud Bania, also spoke on the occasion.