The Hindu : National : Two militant outfits join adivasi protests in Assam

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Sunday, Dec 02, 2007
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Two militant outfits join adivasi protests in Assam

Sushanta Talukdar

GUWAHATI: Two militant outfits — the Birsa Commando Force (BCF) and the Adivasi Cobra Militants of Assam (ACMA) — on Saturday joined the All Adivasi Students Association of Assam (AASAA), Jharkhand Disam Party of Jharkhand, All India Adivasi Students’ and Youth Association and Adivasi Mahila Parishad to set December 7 as the deadline to the Centre to table a bill in the current session of Parliament for including the adivasis and tea tribes as Scheduled Tribes of Assam, failing which the organisations warned of an economic blockade by adivasis in Jharkhand from December 17.

The chief organising secretary of AASAA, Bosco Chermaco, said that the meeting attended by the leaders of the two militant outfits decided to issue an appeal to people of Jharkhand to launch an economic blockade from December 17 if the Centre failed to respond.

The meeting took strong objection to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s statement on the issue of ST status to adivasis and tea tribes in Assam and decided that if the Centre failed to correct its stand by tabling a bill within the current session of Parliament, then there would be an economic blockade of coal, uranium and other mines in Jharkhand.

The meeting was attended among others, by the self-styled commander in chief of BCF, Birsing Munda, and ACMA commander-in-chief Kanhu Murmu.

Both the BCF and the ACMA are currently under ceasefire agreement with the Assam government and there are about 500 cadres in the designated camps belonging to both the outfits.

ULFA’s charge

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), on the other hand, in a statement alleged that a section of politicians and Christian missionaries had been trying to separate the adivasis and tea tribes of Assam from the Assamese society.

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