Assam Government Decides to Table Nellie Massacre Report After 42 Years
It is significant that an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims, mostly women and children, were killed in the massacre which took place in 1983 during the height of the Assam Agitation, also known as the anti-foreigners’ movement.
Guwahati: In a significant move, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced that after forty-two years of the Nellie Massacre in Assam, his government has decided to table the Tribhuvan Prasad Tiwari Commission Report in the assembly in November, months before the state goes for polls.
It is significant that an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims, mostly women and children, were killed in the massacre which took place in 1983 during the height of the Assam Agitation, also known as the anti-foreigners’ movement.
Pointing out that successive governments were hesitant in tabling the report as the report did not have the signature of Mr Tiwari, the chief minister said that many governments failed to conclude if the report was “genuine or fake” as it was not signed by Mr Tiwari. “We have interviewed the clerks and the secretaries who were involved in the preparation of the report, followed by a forensic test. We came to a conclusion that the report is genuine,” said Mr Sarma.
Stating that many historians and social scientists have presented the report in different ways, the chief minister said that publication of the report would let people know the facts and exactly what happened at that time.
“There was a need to take a bold step. We thought we should table it in the Assembly since it is a part of Assam’s history,” the chief minister said.
The violence that had rocked the nation allegedly raged through the night across Muslim villages at Nellie, which was then in central Assam’s Nagaon district.
The then Assam government had constituted the Tiwari Commission to investigate the causes and circumstances of the tragedy, considered one of the darkest chapters in Assam’s history.
The decision to table the Tewari Commission report has also come close on the heels of a massive eviction drive being carried out by the BJP-led government targeting the Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam. This, according to the Opposition parties, is being done as part of polarisation politics of BJP in the run up to Assembly elections scheduled to take place in April 2026.
The Nellie massacre had drawn the attention of global media and the incident was widely reported in the media. The attacks occurred across Nellie and 14 other villages over a period of about six hours on February 18, 1983.
