Placing of Nellie massacre panel reports after 42 years brings to fore Assam’s darkest chapter again
On the cold morning of February 18, 1983, in the small town of Nellie in Central Assam’s Morigaon district, over 2,000 people, mostly Bengali-speaking immigrant Muslims, were killed allegedly by Tiwa (Lalung) tribes, while almost three lakh people were left homeless, according to public reports.
The Himanta Biswa Sarma government on Tuesday submitted the reports of two inquiry panels – the TP Tewary Commission set up by the government and the TU Mehta Commission formed by a civil society group and supporters of the Assam Agitation – in the parliament on Tuesday, months ahead of the assembly elections.
The violence had also occurred in the backdrop of assembly elections being held in the state in 1983, despite opposition from supporters of Assam’s agitation against illegal aliens in the state. The state was then under the rule of the President.
The agitation, which began in 1979, was spearheaded by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) and called for a boycott of the elections; This garnered public support and even led to the resignation of more than 150 government and public sector officials in the state.
Ahead of the elections, more than 150 supporters of the agitation died in police firing and an estimated 5,000 people lost their lives in ethnic and communal clashes in various places like Nellie, Gohpur, Khoirabari, Sipajhar, Jamugurihat and Silapathar. At that time, a fear was created among the indigenous people, including the Tiwa, that the reserved tribal lands were being taken over by settlers. Their cattle were stolen for farming and they eventually settled on these lands permanently. The immediate trigger was the spread of rumors that immigrant Bengali Muslims had kidnapped and gang-raped four young women from a Tiwa family, killed six children, illegally cultivated Tiwa land and stolen cows, and also attacked a Bihari village in that area.
However, there was no record of any FIR or criminal case against the alleged perpetrators.
The Nellie massacre, which lasted more than seven hours in one day, started in Borbori village and spread to Nellie and 14 Muslim-majority villages in the region.
In Nellie, a mob burned many houses and guarded all roads and exits into the village, killing anyone who tried to escape.
The massacre ended with the arrival of CRPF personnel in the evening; Survivors alleged that local police abetted the violence and even initially prevented central security personnel from entering the villages.
The police opened 688 criminal cases, 378 of which were closed due to “lack of evidence” and another 310 cases were planned to be investigated. However, under the 1985 Assam Accord, all the cases were dropped by the Government of India and as a result, none of them were prosecuted. The Assam Agitation, which lasted six years, ended with the signing of the Agreement.
A commission was formed by the government under the chairmanship of bureaucrat TP Tewary, but AASU and AAGSP did not testify. Following this, the ‘Assam Freedom Fighters Association’ attempted to set up the non-government Mehta commission to investigate the incident in January 1984.
The Assam Cabinet had recently decided to submit the Tewary Commission report to the state assembly, following which AASU had also demanded that the Mehta Commission be placed in the house.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that in 1987, the then AGP government headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had submitted the report to the parliament and he had promised to make hard copies available to the legislators. But it was not given to MLAs and MPs and is not even available in the assembly library.
Mahanta himself had led the agitation as AASU president and later founded the political party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and came to power as the then youngest chief minister after the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.
Sarma said the state cabinet has decided that the report will be distributed among the members of the legislative assembly and copies will be provided to the parliamentary library.
He said the submission of both the reports was an “academic exercise” and would highlight a “huge chapter in the history of Assam”.
As the incumbent CM said, the assembly did not discuss the two reports on Tuesday.
Sarma had also claimed that the “salient” feature of the Tewary commission report was that it documented the “demographic shift” and tensions prevailing at the time.
