NDFB(S) carnage joint failure of Centre and state: Gogoi

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said it was the “joint failure” of both the state and Central governments to prevent the recent carnage of tribals by Bodo miltant group NDFB (Songbijit) in the state. The chief minister also accused the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of leaking to the media its report on receiving prior information about NDFB(S) attack “thereby exposing their own Central government”.[caption id=“attachment_1666069” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. PTI[/caption] To a at a press meet here, Gogoi said “if you say so, yes it was a joint failure of the state and central governments. There were lapses…I don’t deny it”. “We want to find out where were the lapses and who are responsible for them. Let there be a judicial inquiry into the lapses. I don’t want to blame anyone now”, Gogoi said. “To contain insurgency is the responsibility of the state and central governments. But the operational head of the Unified Command Structure is the GoC of 4 Corps (in Tezpur of Assam) and not my Director General of Police”, the chief minister asserted. “The IB gave us information on December 23 at 3 pm that NDFB-S would strike and we got information about it before them at 12 noon. I could not take action but our case is why the army, SSB, paramilitary forces did not act when they had the information,” Gogoi said. “The Centre has constitutional responsibility to take action against militants. So do I have and don’t want to shrug it. But they have greater responsibility as their reach is far greater. They only have to talk with neighbouring foreign countries if anti-insurgency operations are to be carried out jointly,” the chief minister said. “The IB leaked out to the media that it had prior intelligence information about the NDFB strike and had accordingly informed us. But they have not realised that they have thereby exposed their central government. The leaking out of information by IB is most unfair and unfortunate,” he claimed. Rejecting Gogoi’s view, BJP Assam unit president Siddhartha Bhattacharya told reporters here that “law and order is a state subject. The Centre can only give forces to the state but it is the state’s responsibility to deploy them”. “In this case, the state government is a big failure in deploying the forces properly to stop violence,” he said. “The Subsidiary Multi Agency Centre (SMAC) with the Joint Director IB heading it collates intelligence related to terrorism to share inputs with both Central and state intelligence agencies. Accordingly it is the job of every body to inform every one,” Gogoi said. On the BJP and other opposition political parties and other organisations demanding imposition of President’s Rule in Assam following the NDFB massacre, he said, “let them dismiss both the Assam Government and the Government of India as there is no such rule for PR in whole India”. Gogoi also accused the “BJP of playing politics when the human suffering is the highest in Assam. They tell us not to indulge in politics under the circumstances. We don’t want to on the life and death issues. The BJP taking NDFB’s support during the last general elections is an open secret”. “The BJP is blaming me for the violence but the BJP-led Central Government has not done so”, he added. Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP today said the Assam government had failed in properly deploying the Central paramilitary forces, leading to escalation of violence after NDFB(S) terrorists carried out serial attacks in the state. He also alleged that the Central intelligence agencies had warned the state of an NDFB(S) attack but the government did not take any measures to prevent that. Bhattacharya also dismissed allegation of BJP discriminating Congress-ruled states in allocating funds. “The Tarun Gogoi government has not give utilisation certificates of most of the Central funds. So how can the Centre release further amount. Earlier, Congress was at Centre also and so they used to get money without even giving utilisation certificates,” he claimed. PTI