Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday expressed apprehension about Maoists' design behind the agitation launched by the landless or illegal settlers on government land under the banner of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity, whose leader Akhil Gogoi has already been arrested and in judicial custody now.
"The government has reasons to infer that Maoists elements may have infiltrated the KMSS that is fighting for landless in the state. Though we don't have direct evidence of Akhil Gogoi's direct links with the Maoists, I can confirm that some KMSS members have gone for training under the Maoists in Orissa. We have we have already arrested two such members," Gogoi said while interacting with media here today.
Gogoi added that the KMSS was working in tandem with two organisations which are known to be fronts of the banned Unite Liberation Front of Assam (anti-talks faction).
Gogoi named these two organisations as Assam Chatra Yuba Sangathan and Chah Janajati Surakhya Samity. He said that he suspected that Maoists elements were present in the state under different garbs.
It may be mentioned that the anti-talks faction of the ULFA led by its 'commander in chief' Paresh Barua has extended its 'full support' to the KMSS-led agitation demanding rights of indigenous people of Assam.
Gogoi reiterated that his government was not going in to talks with KMSS leaders as they had indulged in violence during the agitation against the eviction drive to root out encroachers on forest land, hills and wetlands in and around Guwahati.
"We will hold talks only with affected people and victims of the eviction drive which has now been stalled. The government has a policy to give land settlement to people who have been living in forest land and hills in and around Guwahati for the last 15 years, but not to those affluent people who have been occupying such lands," Gogoi said.
"The final decision will be taken by the committee that we have constituted to review the land settlement policy," he added.
The committee we have constituted to review the land settlement policy will take the final decision," Gogoi said.
