Days after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lambasted the BJP-led Governments of Assam and Gujarat for targeting the linguistic minorities, a team of Trinamool Congress MPs led by Derek O’Brien on Sunday met the kin of victims allegedly massacred by terrorists in Tinsukia district of Assam.
The team constituting MPs Derek O’Brien, Mamata Bala Thakur, Nadimul Haq and MLA Mahua Moitra later announced an assistance of Rs 1 lakh each for the families of the five victims, sources said, adding, the Chief Minister had also directed her party MPs to raise the issue with President Ramnath Kovind.
An appointment had been sought with the President, TMC sources said in Kolkata.
Condemning the brutal act O’Brien said, “I have no words to express this terrible act. After these people were poor and innocent and did not deserve to be killed like this. They have been murdered in cold blood.” He said, “this is a humanitarian visit and we have to come to stand by the grieving families.”
Five people of Bengali-speaking community were gunned on Thursday down at Kherbari village of Tinsukia district allegedly by ULFA terrorists. “We met the family members of the victims. They belong to the poorest of the poor section of the society. These families are living in this region for generations. They have no enmity with anyone. Still they were killed in cold blood like this. The Government must fix responsibility and secure the lives of minorities living in Assam,” Moitra said.
Earlier Mamata Banerjee had directly linked the attacks with the striking out of the names of 40 lakh people from the National Register for Citizens and attacked the BJP Governments of Assam and Gujarat for pursuing a politics of hatred by “driving out Bengalis, and UPwallas from Assam and Biharis from Gujarat.”
Her nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee went to the extent of seeking the resignation of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal for failing to ensure the safety and security of the citizens, particularly the minorities. Both the TMC and the CPI(M) had taken out rallies in Kolkata and other parts of Bengal protesting the Assam killings while the Congress on observed a “black day” to denounce the killings allegedly caused by the divisive policies of the BJP in general and the Assam Government in particular.
However Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh refuted the charges saying “there are law and order problems in every State. Thousands of people were killed during the Left regime in Bengal, hundreds of them have been killed during the Trinamool period and we have seen how elections are conducted in this State.”