Assam govt to table long-suppressed Tiwari Commission report on 1983 Nellie massacre in Assembly

Four decades after the infamous Nellie massacre, the BJP led government in Assam is likely to table in Assam Legislative assembly the report of Tiwary Commission, which was established to investigate the massacre.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said that the cabinet resolved to table the Tiwari Commission Report in the forthcoming session of the Assam Legislative assembly in November this year.

The 600-page report was submitted to the Assam government in 1984. The then Congress government led by chief minister Hiteswar Saikia, however, decided against making the report public. Subsequently governments also chose to keep the findings confidential. Close to 1800 people were killed in a span of six hours when mobs attacked villages in and around Nellie on February 18, 1983.

“The Tiwari commission report was never laid in the assembly. The cabinet meeting today has decided that the report of the massacre of 1983 will be tabled in the state assembly on November 25," he said.

Sarma further added that the copies of the report available with the government did not have the signature of Tiwari.

"We sent officers to the clerks and others who wrote the report, and we did a forensic test of the same and found that it was genuine. Successive governments refrained from making the same public," he said.

The chief minister said that the present government decided that one must take a bold step as this is a part of Assam’s history.

"Historians and social scientists have interpreted and presented in different ways. However, once the report is there in public people can see for themselves what it meant," he added.