Gogoi upset with West Bengal govt for barring officials to visit camps

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is miffed with the West Bengal government for not allowing his officials to meet with the people from Assam taking shelter in relief camps in the neighbouring state. “The Alipurduar DM did not allow our officials to meet the inmates in the relief camps there today. Very unfortunate and unfair on the part of the West Bengal government to not allow our officials to meet our own people,” Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati.[caption id=“attachment_1692043” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. PTI[/caption] “They are not West Bengal’s people but Assam’s people and we want to bring them back home. I don’t know what (chief minister) Mamata Banerjee is doing by preventing our officials. May be there is some politics (involved),” he alleged. “We have taken up the issue with their chief secretary so that our officials can meet the inmates and bring home the 441 adivasis taking shelter in a relief camp under Kumargram police station in Alipurduar district,” Gogoi said. The 800 Bodos taking shelter in Arunachal Pradesh’s Namaro in West Kameng district would also be brought back to Assam, he said. Meanwhile the situation, following the 23 December NDFB(S) attack that claimed 81 lives, was fast returning to normal with 2.11 lakh people taking shelter in relief camps in the affected districts of Kokrajhar, Sonitpur, Chirang and Udalguri gradually returning home, the chief minister said. The people were being provided security in the affected areas which would them the confidence to return home, he said. PTI