The Assam Cabinet Wednesday announced that it has approved a scheme to issue arms licences to “indigenous people” in parts of the state where their population is in the minority, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stating that the government “will encourage” them to apply and take arms licences.
While listing examples of such “vulnerable areas,” Sarma named districts such as Dhubri, Morigaon, Nagaon, Barpeta and South Salmara. Bengali-origin Muslims account for the majority in these areas.
Samra stated that “indigenous people are in the minority” in these areas and often “have to confront the question of their security.”
Sarma was speaking after an Assam Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday evening.
“Particularly in light of the incidents in Bangladesh, they can be victims of an attack from the side of Bangladesh and can be victims of an attack in their own villages as well. In light of this, the Cabinet has taken a decision today that in all such vulnerable areas in Assam, indigenous people will be given arms licences… For that, today we announce the ‘special schemes for grant of arms licences to original inhabitants and indigenous Indian citizens in vulnerable and remote areas of Assam’,” he said.
“In Dhing, Rupohi, Lahorighat, in the pockets in these areas in which our Assamese people are still there, they always have to leave the area out of fear. They sell their land and leave. Now we are telling them that the government will give you licences so that you can continue living there with some courage,” he said.
Sarma called the decision a major step towards securing “jati mati bheti” (community, land and hearth), the slogan on which the BJP had come to power in Assam.
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“These demands were there from the days of the Assam Agitation (1979-1985), and if then itself we had given arms licences to our indigenous people, maybe people would not have sold their homes and land,” he said.
Sarma said that this would be notified on an immediate basis.
“Once we take a cabinet memorandum, it will take a maximum 24 hours to sign. After that, it is notified,” the Chief Minister said.