DHEMAJI, Oct 27 - The All Assam Students� Union (AASU) announced that it will launch a Statewide agitation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and construction of big dams in Arunachal rivers from November 4.
The decision was taken at the general body meeting of the apex students� organisation, which concluded at Jonai in Dhemaji district on Saturday evening.
Expressing their rigidity over CAB, AASU functionaries said they would launch demonstrations in all district headquarters on November 4 and then intensify their stir in the subsequent period.
�We are strictly opposing the CAB, but the Central government is trying to impose it forcefully. We have taken the decision to extend the stir to the village level by mobilising the common people against the act�, said AASU Chief Adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya, while adding that it will destroy the languages and cultures of the indigenous Assamese communities.
The CAB was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8 but was not tabled in the Rajya Sabha. The act seeks to grant citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan even without valid documents after six years of residence in India.
AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi and other functionaries said that they will also agitate against the construction of the 2000 MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Power Project by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) at Gerukamukh.
�The government has constituted task force in Dhemaji, Lakhimpur and Biswanath districts of north Assam to suppress our anti-dam movement. But, we are rigid on our decision and no force can suppress our democratic movement�, Gogoi vowed.
Construction of the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Power Project on the Subansiri river at the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border has been stalled since December 2011 due to massive protests by AASU and several local organisations over safety fears.
But, the NHPC authority has resumed its construction in the same design after getting requisite approval from the government in August this year.
