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Bodo group war to turn bloodier

Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati

The clashes among opposing groups of the Bodo community in Assam are set to intensify with a banned outfit issuing shoot-at-sight orders against six other Bodo groups on Tuesday.

The National Democratic Front of Bodoland, regarded as one of the deadliest insurgent outfits in the northeast and mainly operating out of the jungles of southern Bhutan, has decided to target a rival militant faction, the Bodo Liberation Tigers and five over-ground organisations.

NDFB's publicity secretary self-styled Lieutenant B Irakdao said NDFB militants have been instructed to shoot at sight members of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha, All Assam Bodo Students Union, Bodo People Action Committee, Bodo Liberation Tigers and the All Bodo Women Welfare Federation.

The BLT is currently observing a cease-fire with the security forces. The NDFB and BLT have been at loggerheads for years. The enmity stems from different objectives.

While the BLT and the five organisations that the NDFB has targeted demand a separate state for the Bodo people, the NDFB wants a separate country for itself.

Last month, 11 BLT cadres were killed by the NDFB at a remote village in Assam's Barpeta district bordering Bhutan. ABSU president Urkhao Gwra Brahma, by far the most influential of the Bodo moderates, moves around with a couple of personal security officers provided by the Assam police.

ABSU has been spearheading a movement for a separate state for the Bodos, numbering close to 2.5 million and mainly inhabiting the plains of lower Assam bordering West Bengal.

The NDFB decision was apparently taken at a national council meeting on January 10 somewhere in Bhutan. The NDFB alleged that the ABSU and BLT are jointly trying to blacken its image.

It admitted it killed Bodo Sahitya Sabha president Bineshwar Brahma. This is the first time the NDFB has admitted its involvement in this crime. It charged that Bineshwar Brahma was an agent of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre.

Brahma was opposed to the adoption of the Roman script for the Bodo language. This had raised the NDFB's hackles, most of whose members are Christians who want to learn Bodo in the Roman script. Currently, the Bodo language is written in the Devnagri script.

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