New Delhi: North East India will be an extremism free region by 2025. Union Home minister Amit Shah said this on Thursday after signing of a tripartite peace agreement with five Adivasi militant organisations and three splinter groups in presence of Assam CM Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma in New Delhi.
Home minister Amit Shah presided over the signing of historic agreement between Government of India, Government of Assam and representatives of eight Adivasi Groups. The agreement was signed to end decades old crisis of Adivasis and ex tea garden workers in Assam. In light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a peaceful and prosperous North East, this agreement will prove to be another important milestone in the direction of making North East extremism free by 2025. After the agreement, 1,182 cadres of tribal groups of Assam joined the mainstream by laying down their arms. Expressing confidence in the steps taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for peace and prosperity of the North East, around 8,000 militants have joined the mainstream of society by laying down their arms since 2014. The government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a record that it has fulfilled 93 percent of all the agreements signed so far, resulting in the restoration of peace in the entire North East including Assam. As per the agreement signed on Thursday, it is the responsibility of the Government of India and Assam to fulfill the political, economic and educational aspirations of Adivasi groups.
In the agreement, provisions have been made to protect and strengthen the social, cultural, ethnic and linguistic identity of Adivasi groups.
The agreement also provides for the establishment of an Adivasi Welfare and Development Council with a view to ensure speedy and focused development of Tea Gardens and measures for rehabilitation and resettlement of armed cadres and welfare of Tea Garden workers. A special development package of Rs.1,000 crore (Rs.500 crore each by Government of India and Government of Assam) will be provided over a period of five years for infrastructure development in villages/areas with Adivasi population.
The Government of India and the Union Home Ministry under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are making every effort to make the whole of the North East and its largest State Assam free from drugs, extremism and controversy. After Independence, the pace of development in North Eastern States had stopped, which was a victim of neglect and politics for a long time and violent separatism was spreading its feet. Prime minister Modi wrote a new saga of development and peace with the Act East Policy.
CM Dr. Sarma expressed his satisfaction after the signing of the peace accord and said that the accord will give a special identity to the Adivasi society of the state. The process is on to sign a peace accord with the Dimasa militant group. The tribal extremism problem has almost come to an end in Assam.
