Land boundary agreement not 'surrender' to Bangladesh, says Assam govt
Rejecting the opposition charge that the land boundary agreement and exchange of enclaves with Bangladesh were “surrender”, the government of India's North Eastern state of Assam yesterday said the deal will help solve the long-standing border dispute between the two countries and insurgency problem.
"The land deal will be beneficial as several acres of land under Bangladesh will come to Assam and the border dispute will be solved," government spokesman and Accord Implementation Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters in Guwahati.
As long as the boundary was not demarcated, fencing could not be erected and the open border helped infiltration from outside. Now with proper demarcation of the boundary, border fencing work will be completed, which will not only stop infiltration but help check trans-border crime, Sarma said.
The major opposition parties in Assam include Bharatiya Janata Party, Asom Gana Parishad, student bodies Assam Students Union and Asom Yuva Chatra Parishad and the popular peasant body Krishak Mukti Sangram Parishad.
The parties opposed the land deal signed recently during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Bangladesh, claiming that several acres of Indian territory were surrendered to a foreign country.
Coming down heavily on the erstwhile Prafulla Mahanta-led Asom Gana Parishad government in Assam, the senior minister alleged that the state "surrendered" huge areas of land to Bangladesh at that time.
"But it is to the credit of the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government that those areas have been brought back.
"India has not surrendered land to Bangladesh (as alleged by the political parties) and in fact it has regained its own territory which will in the long run help solve the border problem," Sarma said.
Referring to the recent protests by the opposition parties and the student bodies, Sarma alleged that these were intended to destabilise the government.
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