The All Adivasi Students Association of Assam has called for a 36-hour Assam bandh from Monday morning in protest against Saturday's attack on Adivasi protestors in Guwahati by locals and the failure of the police to safeguard the protestors.
The Assam state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party has extended moral support to the bandh call alleging the state administration of failing to act in time to control the situation on Saturday before it had gone out of control
A spokesman of AASAA demanded judicial inquiry into the Saturday's clashes to find out who had actually started the vandalism that exposed AASAA protestors to the brutal ire of local people in the Beltola area of Guwahati.
The AASAA has not ruled out involvement of 'vested interests' that had actually sparked the violence.
The AASAA has also appealed to the people of Assam to cooperate and respond positively to the bandh call and called upon all Adivasi people to remain restrained during the bandh period even as Assam government has ordered a commissioner level inquiry into Saturday's violent clashes that left one dead and about 240 injured.
Former chief minister of Jharkhand and BJP leader Arjun Munda who was in Guwahat to take stock of the situation and meet injured Advasi people at Guwahati Medical College Hospital, alleged the hand of the state government behind Saturday's clashes.
He wanted to know how the state intelligent agencies failed to alert the government on the serious development that was in the offing so close to the state's capital complex. It is hard to believe that the state administration and police were caught napping during the clashes.
Munda also demanded a judicial probe into the violence to fond out the culprits behind it.
He said the ruling Congress should stop testing the patience of the Adivasi people of Assam and accept their demand for Scheduled Tribe status.
"The Congress has been using Adivasis as a vote bank and hence is not interested in their demand as that would put an end to the vote bank culture vis-à-vis the backward Adivasi community," Munda said.
Munda who visited injured Adivasi protestors at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital alleged that proper treatment was not being given to many of them and that some of the injured had been released without even with a prescription.
Meanwhile, curfew in violence-affected areas along Dipur-Basistha Chariali road was relaxed for 12 hours from 8 am on Sunday due to improvement in the situation. Deputy Commissioner Avinash Joshi termed the situation as gradually improving.
