Barak Democratic Youth Front protests for official recognition of Bengali language martyrs at Silchar Railway Station

Members of the Barak Democratic Youth Front held a protest in the Silchar railway station premises on the morning of May 19 with placards such as “62 bochor poreo keno Bhasa Shahid der meleni sorkari sikriti?”, “Mehrotra Commisioner report obilombe prokash korte hobe”, “Bhasa Shahid Station namkoron atke rakha cholbe na” etc. During the Bhasa Shahid Dibos programme, this novel mode of protest attracted the attention of many people who came for Shahid Tarpan and spontaneously participated in the demonstration alongwith them. The protest was led by Kalparnab Gupta, Chief Convener of Barak Democratic Youth Front.

Later while giving an interview to the reporters Kalparnab said that every year on this day we pay tribute to the martyrs, various events are held in their memory, but even after 62 years of the incident, the language martyrs have not been officially recognised by the government. The report of the Mehrotra Commission was also deliberately not made public. The renaming of Silchar railway station to “Bhasa Shahid Station” has also been withheld. He said if we are to be the real descendants of the Nineteenth May struggle, raising these demands is very important. We have to ask the question why these demands are not fulfilled even if one after another government comes to power in Dispur. Barak Democratic Front believes that besides paying tributes, everyone should join in and let that voice reach the authorities of Dispur. This is why this sit-in protest is being held by the Youth Front.

Later, BDF members laid wreaths at the Shahid Bedi located at Silchar crematorium. Speaking to reporters there, BDF Chief Convenor Pradip Dutta Roy said that although 880 martyrs of the Assam movement have been given government recognition and government grants to their families, it is nothing but hypocrisy to deny the same to the language martyrs of May 19. Besides, he also demanded that the mother tongue of one third population of the state i.e. Bengali should be recognised as an associate official language of Assam immediately.

Among others, Debayan Dev, Haradhan Dutta, Raju Dev, Rajeev Das and others participated in the agitation on behalf of the Youth Front. Besides, Hrishikesh Dey, Adima Majumder, Seema Ghosh, Joydeep Bhattacharjee, Bahar Uddin Choudhury, Hifjur Uddin Majumder, Ajit Das, Raju Dev, Ripon Das and others were present in both the programmes.