Reiterating the government’s commitment to fight against illegal infiltrators, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday appealed for a boycott of ‘unknown people’ to secure the future of Assamese people as a race.

Sarma said this while addressing a public meeting on the occasion of inauguration of the Swahid Smarak (Martyrs’ Column) at Guwahati’s Boragaon area. Reiterating the threat from ‘unknown people’ to the Assamese race as a whole, Sarma appealed to every Assamese people not to sell their lands to such people even during the worst of financial situation and not to employ them in the establishments belonging to Assamese people.

Sarma said that Assamese people are becoming minority in their own state as the number of illegal immigrants are increasing leading to demographic change. “In the 2027 census we will see that our number will go below 60 per cent. Due to demographic change, these ‘unknown people’ have started taking lead in most of the activities. Their number is increasing and they are not restricted to a few pockets in the state but spread across cities, he said.

Citing a recent survey, the Chief Minister said that indigenous people are selling their lands to these ‘unknown people’ even in places like Tinsukia.

“If the people of Assam do not take a resolution, we are sure to lose our cultural and political identity,” he said. He appealed that every businessman, entrepreneur and industrialist must resolve that they would never recruit unknown people in their establishments.

He said that despite Assam Accord was signed in 1985 to detect and deport the illegal foreigners from Assam nothing had happened over the last 40 years. It is the BJP government who had started the movement against the illegal foreigners in Assam,” he said, adding that while the government has enacted land laws ensuring that illegal settlers cannot buy land from the Assamese people, it has also evicted ‘unknown people’ from the forest and government lands across the state.

“Over the last five years, our government had cleared lakhs of bighas of land from illegal encroachment of these people. We have been able to stop the poaching of rhinos and ensured that only Assamese people are recruited in Assam," the CM stated.

Assam observes December 10 as Swahid Divas (Martyrs’ Day) in memory of the 860 martyrs who had laid down their lives during the historical Assam movement that sought to detect and deport illegal infiltrators from Assam.

The Swahid Smarak Kshetra at Boragaon in Guwahati was constructed by the BJP led government in Assam in honour of the martyrs of the 1979-1985 Assam Movement.