Guwahati, July 13: The days of economy-crippling marathon blockade are back to haunt Assam with the All Koch Rajbongshi Students’ Union today calling a 1,000-hour economic blockade from July 20, and simultaneously declaring that it would not settle for anything less than a separate Kamtapur state.

Since a number of important highways in Assam cut through Koch-Rajbongshi dominated areas, the 40-day blockade will choke the state’s supply routes.

The students’ organisation will embark on a more vigorous agitation if the blockade failed to evoke any positive response from the government, said Biswajit Roy, president of the organisation.

The blockade will effect the movement of vehicles on National Highway 31, which cuts through the Koch Rajbongshi-dominated Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Darrang districts. National Highway 31 (c), which passes through Dhubri and Bongaigaon and National Highway 37, which crosses Bongaigaon and Goalpara, will also be paralysed. Train services would not be affected, Roy said.

The organisation had been seeking Scheduled Tribe status for the community so far.

But they decided to revise their demand from ST status to statehood for the Koch-Rajbongshi, as “we have realised that under the present administrative set-up, the aspiration of the community would not be fulfilled”, said Roy.

He said they were holding discussions with legal experts to move court against the government for not according ST status to the state’s around 30 lakh-strong Koch-Rajbongshi community.

In 1996, after the registrar general of India approved the Scheduled Tribe demand of the community, the government through ordinances accorded ST status to the Rajbongshi community for a year. But the status was short-lived, as the government failed to present a bill in Parliament.

“How can the government now reject our demand stating we do not have the requisite criteria for ST status? This is double standards. We will move court seeking justice,” Roy said.

But the campaign announced by the students’ union today was in demand for a separate Kamtapur state, to be formed by carving out Koch Rajbongshi dominated districts of Assam and West Bengal. The student’s union will also stage an indefinite hunger strike in front of Parliament during the next session. “After the trust vote, whenever Parliament resumes for a full session, our members will hold an indefinite hunger strike in front of Parliament,” he said.

To garner support for the movement, the union is planning to organise citizens meetings (nagarik sabhas) in all the districts and an intellectuals’ conclave.

Security agencies said the students’ statehood movement could give a boost the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, which has been waging an armed war for a separate homeland for the Koch Rajbongshis.