• NET Web Desk

The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) today alleged that a significant portion of the India-Bangladesh border in Assam’s Dhubri district is still “unfenced”, even after 37 years of signing of the historic Assam Accord.

A team of All Assam Students’ Union led by its General Secretary – Shankar Jyoti Baruah visited the district’s international border on Sunday and voiced their displeasure over the “exposed” boundary.

“We are shocked to see that the border between India and Bangladesh along the Gangadhar river in Binnachara area near Golakganj is totally exposed,” Baruah said.

He accused both the Centre and the state government of making “false promises on sealing of the border” to the Assamese people.

The historic Assam Accord of 1985 has completed its 37th anniversary, and “still one of its major clauses of total sealing of the Indo-Bangla border remains unfulfilled”, Baruah added.

“The government has no interest in protecting the Indo-Bangla border, and in fact, the quality of fence in Assam is poor as compared to that of the India-Pakistan boundary,” he alleged.

The student leader further stated that all claims made by the state and central administration, regarding a sealed border and different technologies employed to thwart illegal migration are “false”.

Baruah claimed that AASU had warned the authorities 40 years ago of the outcome of the open international border in Dhubri district, and “now the chief minister is saying that the Jihadi activities in the state have increased”.

Assam has turned into a hub of “jihadi activities” with five modules linked to the Bangladesh-based terror outfit Ansarul Islam found in just five months, as informed by the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier this month.

“If the Centre had sealed the border in time, threats by the fundamentalists would not have existed,” the student leader said.

The students’ body demanded that the government should utilize advanced scientific techniques to seal the exposed boundary.

The team of the AASU’s central committee members visited the India-Bangladesh boundary between Pillar 1001 and 1031.

Its worthy to note that the Assam Accord was signed on August 15, 1985, by the Centre, the state government, the AASU, and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad to end an agitation spearheaded by the students’ organization against the “illegal entry of foreigners in the state”.