Himanta Biswa Sarma Says Hindu Youths Involved In Smuggling Bangladeshis into Assam

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who raised serious concerns over the involvement of local youths in facilitating the illegal entry of Bangladeshis in Assam, distanced the BJP from a controversial remark of BJP IT cell’s national convener Amit Malviya on Bengali language. Mr Sarma, who was in Barrak Valley, told reporters in Silchar that middlemen are charging around ₹20,000 per person to help Bangladeshis cross into India. The chief minister regretted that many of these middlemen are “Hindu youths” from Assam.

Pointing out that a syndicate is actively operating to smuggle people from Bangladesh into Assam the chief minister however claimed  that several members of this network have already been apprehended. Informing that illegal entrants largely come through Tripura, Dawki, Mankachar, and Sribhumi, he said that those caught are immediately arrested, and additional measures have been implemented to prevent new illegal entries into Assam.

In an obvious attempt to pacify that controversy triggered after BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya’s controversial remark on Bengali language, the chief minister flagged Bengali’s cultural and national significance. “How can Bengali be called the language of Bangladesh? Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate, hailed from West Bengal. Bengali has been accorded Classical Language status and is one of the important official languages of the country. The BJP has always respected the Bengali language and will continue to do so,” he said.

The controversy had started over an August 5 incident when the Delhi Police, in a communication, described Bangla as “Bangladeshi language”, drawing sharp criticism from the Trinamool Congress. A day later, Mr Malviya, who heads the BJP’s IT cell and is the party’s co-observer in West Bengal, backed the description.

In a social media post, he argued that “there is, in fact, no language called ‘Bengali’ that neatly covers all variants,” and described the phrase “Bangladeshi language” as shorthand for identifying immigrants, not a commentary on the language spoken in West Bengal. The controversy was causing serious dissension among the Hindu Bengali. The Assam chief minister also assured that no Bengali Hindu in Barak Valley will face trouble over Aadhaar related issues.