The families of Assam Agitation victims on Monday said the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was an insult to the 860 martyrs and they would keep protesting till the Act is repealed.

The families had gathered to pay tribute to the martyrs at a function organised by the Tinsukia district committee of the All Assam Martyrs-Victims’ Family Council at the Sahitya Sabha Bhawan campus here in Tinsukia district of Upper Assam.

Pramila Kakoti, 85, a resident of Samguri village under Talap Gaon panchayat in Doomdooma subdivision said, “My son had not sacrificed his life for this day when an Act which is insulting to the indigenous people is enforced without the will of natives of Assam. It is an insult to the martyrs. We will keep protesting against the new law until it is scrapped.”

Pramila’s eldest son, Bhavesh, was one of the 13 martyrs of the Assam Agitation (1979-1985) in Tinsukia district.

According to the list presented by All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) to the state government, 860 people were martyred in the state during the Assam Agitation, a movement against illegal immigrants. The movement, led by the AASU and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad, developed a programme of protests to compel the Centre to detect and deport illegal migrants, mostly from Bangladesh, and protect and provide constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to the indigenous Assamese people. The unrest officially ended on August 15, 1985, following the Assam Accord.

Pramila said, “Had the government worked sincerely and firmly according to the Assam Accord, such painful situations would not have arisen again. Several people died during the anti-CAA protests too. The people are worried and are, therefore, out on the streets.”

Five persons died of suspected police firing during the anti-CAA protests in Assam that erupted after Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill on December 11. “Assam was recovering from the path of violence and experiencing peace. The people had accepted the Assam Accord,” she said.

Most of the families from Eragaon, Selenguri, Langfai, Dirak Maithong, Talap, Lajum village, Kakopathar, Laipuli, Dimaguri and Guijan in the district, whose members died or sustained serious injuries, said the government should provide them with jobs, homes and financial assistance so that they can come out of a poverty-stricken life. Most of them are surviving as daily wagers and are finding it

difficult to educate their children.

In the afternoon, the council issued a release, signed by its president Jobanand Mahananda and secretary Dilip Kakoty, saying that the district deputy commissioner should identify around 400 people who sustained serious injuries during the agitation and give them financial assistance, appoint 310 applicants in 21 departments, provide reservations in medical and engineering colleges to youths in the families of martyrs and critically injured victims of the agitation and to provide a column, Martyrs-victims’ family member, in government application forms.