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| After Telangana Centre moves to carve out Bodoland state from Assam |
On Wednesday, the Union home ministry set up an expert committee to examine the viability of granting statehood to Bodoland, by holding consultations with all sections of the society.
The committee will be headed by former Union home secretary G K Pillai, who had also served as joint secretary (north-east) in the home ministry earlier in his career. The panel has been asked to submit its report in nine months.
It be recalled that ever since the government announced its decision to create Telangana in October last year, several Bodo outfits had intensified their agitation to press their demand for a separate state for Bodo tribals. The Bodos live mostly in a few districts on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra river in Assam.
Giving voice to the demand in Parliament all these months was Lok Sabha MP from Kokrajhar, S K Bwismuthiary.
The government’s decision to set up an expert committee to examine the demand for Bodoland is aimed at pacifying the Bodo tribals hurt at losing out to Telangana, as the country goes into the general elections.
The government had earlier set up an autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in 2003 by signing an accord after years of violent agitations that claimed hundreds of lives.
The BTC area had in 2012 witnessed ethnic clashes between Bodo tribals and immigrant Muslims, apparently triggered by circulation of inflammatory videos showing atrocities on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The violence killed over a 100 people.
Source: timesofindia
