‘India-Bangladesh border will be sealed soon’
The India-Bangladesh border will be completely sealed shortly, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in Assam on March 30.
‘The border has remained unfenced. I wonder why Congress could not fence the border and allowed unabated influx from Bangladesh into Assam,’ the minister said at a rally in the poll-bound state.
‘Influx has been continuing ever since Bangladesh was created. I have visited the international border areas with Bangladesh and will soon completely seal Indo-Bangladesh border. I held talks with the Bangladesh government,’ he said.
Addressing several rallies during the day, the minister criticized the Tarun Gogoi government for not taking any steps to stop the inflow of fake currency notes from across border either.
The minister said that the insurgency situation in Assam had improved in the past 18 months of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
‘This is not my claim but political analysts have pointed that insurgency situation in Assam has improved,’ he said.
Pointing to the NDA government’s swift action when Adivasi people were killed in Bodoland in 2014, Singh said, ‘I rushed to Guwahati and sent out a clear message that violence and terror will not be related at any cost.’
The minister appealed to the militant outfits to shun violence. ‘We are prepared to hold talks and settle all issues only if there are no violence and killing of innocent people,’ he said.
Blaming the Congress for not implementing the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, he said, ‘I promise that if voted to power in Assam, we will develop the tea belt which Congress has exploited since Independence.
People from outside, when they visit India and see the plight of tea garden workers, they get negative perception about India.’
Taking strong exception to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s comment that wherever BJP comes to power it incites violence, Singh said more riots happened under Congress rule, pointing to the Nellie massacre of Assam of 1983 and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
