ULFA faction wants BJP govt to name schools, colleges after sons of Assam, blames NEEPCO for flood

A faction of the banned militant outfit United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has demanded that the BJP-led government in Assam should change the names of educational institutes christened after “outsider Indians” and replace them with the names of Assamese leaders, or face “punitive” actions, reports said. According to NDTV, the BJP government in Assam has been a six months time to comply with the demand. [caption id=“attachment_4011911” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Paresh Barua. PTI[/caption] According to Shillong Times, the anti-talk faction of the banned outfit led by fugitive commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, emailed a statement to the media, where it said that educational institutions in Assam should be named after “eminent sons of the soil within six months failing which it would take ‘punitive’ action against those institutions if they fail to comply”. In the statement, ULFA publicity secretary Arunodoi Asom questioned the government’s motive, behind setting up a university after the name of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, The Economic Times said. It also criticised the BJP-led Assam government’s decision to set up 22 new model colleges after Jana Sangha ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya. “The iconic leaders of Assam like Gomdhar Konwar, Pioli Phukan and many others, who had laid down their lives for Assam are yet to get their due recognition. The 855 martyrs who had sacrificed their lives for the Assam Movement are still ignored by the government. The government’s move to set up 22 model colleges after the name of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, who is in no way connected to Assam, is an insult to the iconic leaders of the state," Arunodoi said, according to the Daily Pioneer. In the statement, the ULFA warned the institutions of armed actions and asked parents and guardians to “withdraw their wards from such institutions in the ‘interest of their security’”, Shillong Times said. “The (BJP-led) alliance government which had come to power on its promise to protect ‘jaati-maati-bheti’ (identity, land and homes) of the indigenous people, should immediately give up its policy of unleashing Indian national dominance and rename such institutions after eminent persons of Assam,” it added. The ULFA also blamed the huge volume of water released from the dam of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation’s (NEEPCO’s) 405 MW Ranganadi hydro-electric project for the recent devastating flood in Lakhimpur district of Assam. ULFA “asked NEEPCO and National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) to quit the region or face ‘military action’,” Shillong Times report said.