GUWAHATI, Jan 4 � Former Chief Minister and AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today accused the State Government of trying to create a confusion among the people by giving contradictory statements regarding the latest killings in Sonitpur and the BTAD.
Speaking to reporters, Mahanta said that while IGP SN Singh had claimed that NDFB(S) supremo IK Songbijit was not involved in the
massacres and the heinous acts were perpetrated at the direction of the outfit�s commander-in-chief G Bidai, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had later said that Songbijit is directly involved in giving the orders for the attacks.
�These are contradictory statements. While the CM said one thing, the senior police official said something different. The State Government should clarify and state the reality before the people of Assam,� he said. �At least one of them is lying. Such type of contradictory statements will hamper investigations and also divert the attention of the people,� he added.
The former Chief Minister added, �Assam Commissioner and Secretary (Home) Prateek Hajela also said that to make counter-insurgency
operations more effective, the Government of India in 1997 had notified the Strategy Group under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary of
Assam for working out broad strategies and policy coordination and the Unified Headquarters under the chairmanship of the GOC, IV Corps for operational purposes.
�It if evident from the statement... that to carry out the counter-insurgency operations, the State police alone is not sufficient and hence there is no alternative but to seek the Army�s support for such
operations. In addition, as per the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the State police machinery and administration have no say over the armed forces and the armed forces do not need any prior permission from the State Government agencies/State police forces to carry out any such anti-insurgency operations.�
He added that in spite of these facts, �such several extremely unfortunate incidents of killing which occurred during the 1998-2000 period were painted with political hues and that time�s AGP-led coalition government and myself, personally as the Chief Minister of the coalition government in Assam, were blamed and a political conspiracy was hatched to malign me.�
