GUWAHATI, May 29 � The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will send a team of investigators from New Delhi to assist the officials of the Guwahati branch of the agency in investigation of the cases relating to killing of more than 40 persons by armed miscreants in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) areas in the first two days of this month.
Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that the NIA has already constituted a team, which would be sent to Assam immediately after the cases are registered formally. Sources said that the NIA has started preliminary work for registering the cases following a request of the State government to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Senior officials of the NIA already had a series of discussions with the Director General of Assam Police and other senior officers regarding the killings in Kokrajhar and Baksa districts.
However, the formal registration of the cases by the NIA is delayed because of a minor technical problem. Sources revealed that initially the Assam government had written to the MHA to hand over four cases to the NIA and the MHA issued the formal notification in this regard. But when the NIA took over the FIRs regarding the cases, it was found that the Assam Police later clubbed two cases and now three cases would have to be registered.
The NIA has already informed the State government and the MHA about the technical issue and the cases would be formally registered immediately after the MHA issues the new notification. �But in the mean time, the NIA officials have started working on the cases,� sources added.
The Assam Police investigation into the cases is on and sources said that the investigations would continue till the NIA formally registers the cases. However, it would depend on the investigating officers of the NIA to decide whether the materials collected by the Assam Police would be used during the course of the investigation. The materials collected by the Assam Police would be checked thoroughly by the investigating officers of the NIA before taking a decision on how to use the same, sources added.
