GUWAHATI, May 27 - Speakers at a meeting held at the Sangeetacharya Lakhiram Barua Auditorium here today paid tribute to Saurabh Bora, a prominent anti-establishment student leader, who was assassinated by a ULFA gunman at the instance of some political forces on the Dibrugarh University campus on May 27, 1986. The meeting, organised by Swahid Saurabh Bora Smriti Divas Udjapan Samiti, was presided over by former Bangalmara Higher Secondary School teacher Narayan Mahanta.
Addressing the function as the chief guest, veteran Communist leader Abani Barpujari warned that the country was heading towards a dark age with the attacks on the rights to speech and belief by those who are holding the reins of the country�s administration now. �The democratic ethos of our people have been sought to be destroyed by these forces. With their slogans to free the country of the Congress and Left parties, these forces are out to eliminate all opposition to their anti-democratic deeds which include, among others, Aryanisation of all institutions contrary to the diverse cultures of the Indian people,� he said.
Social worker Hareswar Barman described Saurabh Bora as a pioneer of the movement to democratize the State�s student movement. He recalled how in the later part of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, after the Internal Emergency, Saurabh Bora strove to revive AASU. Journalist Monoram Gogoi, former Cotton College teacher Biswajit Chakraborty, women activists Musfika Begum and Madhuri Bora also spoke on the occasion.
