Guwahati, Nov 13 (PTI) The Assam cabinet on Thursday decided to make public the report of the Tewary Commission that probed into the 1983 Nellie massacre among members of the state assembly during the forthcoming session on November 25, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Assam had witnessed unprecedented violence in 1983 and over 2000 people were killed at that point of time while almost three lakh people lived in relief camps for months, he said.
”The then government under Asom Gana Parishad’s Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had constituted a commission under the chairmanship of Tribhuvan Prasad Tewari to inquire into it. But that report is not available in the public domain,” the chief minister said at the media briefing after the cabinet meeting.
”When we inquired, we found that in 1987 the then chief minister had placed the report in the assembly and had promised that he would provide printed copies in the days to come. It was, however, not given to the MLAs and MPs and even the assembly library does not have it,” Sarma said.
The state cabinet, therefore, has decided that the report will be circulated among the members of the legislative assembly and copies will also be provided to the assembly library, he added.
The house will, however, not table or hold discussions on the report, he said.
”The Commission had provided the factual situation in Nellie prior to the incident. As per my study of the report, the Commission has said that various things had taken place prior to the incident that had antagonised the tribal population. As a retaliatory step, the tribals had attacked the immigrant Muslim community,” Sarma claimed.
The highlight of the report is not about the incident but is about the demographic changes that have taken place in Assam since 1951, how the farmland of the local population of Assam declined during that period and how the Assamese at large were losing its political, economic and cultural identity, he added.
”The report has beautifully narrated the situation of the Assamese people way back in 1983. I think the report is still relevant and it is a part of our history which should not be kept hidden under lock and key. So we decided to publish the report for the better understanding for the people at large,” the CM said.
Sarma said that both hard and soft copies of the report will be circulated.
Nellie in Central Assam’s Morigaon district had witnessed large scale killing of immigrant Muslims during the height of the Assam agitation against infiltrators and the Commission was constituted after the AGP government came to power following the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.
The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad, who had jointly spearheaded the Assam Movement that began in 1979, however, did not testify before the Commission. PTI DG NN
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