Barak Valley handles communal provocation with great maturity

The people of Barak Valley have shown tremendous maturity and resilience by not succumbing to the evil designs of some miscreants who wanted to harm the secular fabric of the valley by fanning communal intolerance.

Indeed, Concern For Silchar salutes its brothers and sisters of the entire valley for showing tolerance which is unseen and unheard of in many other parts of the nation. We might be backward economically but the nation can learn a lot from us when it comes to the socio-cultural indicators.

Barak Valley has had a very long and illustrious shared history of the following and propagation of both the religions. Though the population of the valley is almost divided into half between the Hindus and the Muslims, there have been very few instances of communal tension between the two communities.

Even when the rest of the nation burnt due to communal violence, the people of this region showed great maturity and avoided getting into any major conflict with each other. Unlike many other areas, there is no trust deficit between the two communities which is the reason for our unity.

However, the recent turn of events have proved that vested interests are at work to spoil the peace in the region. We might have succeeded in handling this particular situation, but repeated provocations may ultimately result in escalation of tensions between the two communities.

Unfortunately, rather than launching a massive operation to nab the culprits, the state government seems more interested in earning political brownie points. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s allegations against Hindu right wing group Vishwa Hindu Parishad seem irresponsible and vested with political ambitions given the fact that no functionary from that organization has so far been arrested even after a week of the first incident at Rongpur.

The focus of the government right now should be on the immediate arrest of the culprits. The criminals who have committed such a heinous crime must be brought to book irrespective of which religion or organization they represent.

Criminals who have no respect for social harmony and the secular ethos of this great country can have no place in the society. The people of Barak Valley, irrespective of caste, creed or religion are united on this issue and will not tolerate any such attempt to bring the region to further disrepute.

Lastly, we must all pledge yet again to stand together and united against any attempt to break  our communal harmony. In any case, we have enough issues to fight against and simply cannot afford any new nuisance.