Guwahati: Hundreds of Assamese women on Friday hit the street of Dhing in central Assam demanding justice for a minor who was gang raped by a group of suspected Muslim migrants on 22 August 2024 while she was returning home from tutorial classes in the evening hours. Following a call by the Dhing unit of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), all commercial establishments and educational institutions remain closed in the locality as a mark of protest. Two of the accused have been detained by the police and a search for the third one is going on.
AASU president Utpal Sarma demanded stringent actions against the culprits. He expressed serious concern that the criminals start daring law enforcement agencies. Hence, the authority must take serious note over the alarming rise of rape-murder incidents in the State. Criticizing the State home department for its failure to protect the women in their own places, the AASU chief insisted that the indigenous girls must be safeguarded at any cost.
Meanwhile, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma directed the State police chief GP Singh to rush to the location and take necessary actions. Sarma, who is also in charge of State home portfolio, commented in his social media handling, “The horrific incident at Dhing, involving a minor, is a crime against humanity and has struck our collective conscience. We will not spare anyone and will bring the perpetrators to justice. I’ve directed the DGP to visit the site and ensure swift action against the monsters.”
Days back, a community (read Marwari) was compelled to apologize in presence of a State minister for a crime committed by some individuals in Sibsagar of eastern Assam. Reacting to the incident, Patriotic Peoples’ Front Assam (PPFA, a forum of nationalist citizens of northeast Bharat) expressed dismay that some parochial Assamese residents continue the same old theory of hatred against outsiders (non-Assamese Indians) since the days of Assam agitation, but never raise legitimate voices against the illegal foreigners from Bangladesh, who have slowly challenged the entire Assamese culture with a changing demography since 1951.
“The accused individuals (who physically assaulted a minor female arm wrestler at Babupatty in Sibsagar on 13 August) must be punished under the law and a due legal process has already begun. But how come the entire community of those accused persons can be made responsible and made to apologize to the locals? More shockingly, how could an Assam minister endorse such an act (where some aged male and females had to kneel down for the public apology) in his presence?”, said a media statement issued by the PPFA putting a valid question– if tomorrow some Assamese youths, working outside the State, commit crimes, should the entire community have to tender regrets.
The forum argues that the agitators, who instigated thousands of residents to hit the streets demanding justice for the victim girl, may now stand behind a corrected National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam with the nationally approved base year. Since the days of historic Assam movement, it’s observed that the local community leaders remain apprehensive about the Hindi speaking residents in the State, but they are too soft for the illegal migrants. The classic example was the Assam Accord (signed in presence of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to culminate the six years old agitation in 1985 after hundreds made supreme sacrifice), which agreed to recognize hundreds of thousands of East Pakistani nationals (who entered Assam till 21 March 1971) as Indians and to allow to live in Assam, concluded the PPFA statement.