Kokrajhar, Nov. 26: The All Bodo Students’ Union (Absu) has warned chief minister Tarun Gogoi and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta not to “politicise” the Bodoland issue.

The students’ body said it was “an emotional issue of Bodos and other communities”.

In a media statement issued today, Absu president Promode Boro said the Bodoland issue or the demand for a separate state is not merely related to development but also to the survival of an indigenous community along with justice for it and other non-indigenous communities living in the proposed Bodoland region.

The repeated and irresponsible statements of both the two leaders are a slur on a community like the Bodos. They are “politicising the community’s genuine aspiration of political self-determination through creation of a Bodoland state within the Constitution,” the group said.

“Can they (Gogoi and Mahanta) explain why the Bodos and other indigenous communities have become so aggressive for their political rights in the past 30 years? Did the Bodos get anything from the Assam government since Independence without sacrificing life and blood? Who are they to oppose and deny the creation of Bodoland, the birth right of the Bodos and other indigenous communities? Where were they when 150 innocent people in Bodoland region were killed one after another in 2008 and 2009 under the very nose of police administration?” it asked.

“If these leaders cannot do anything for the Bodos then they have no right to oppose our right. We urged the leaders not to make baseless statement for political interest and appeal all political parties not to make the Bodo issue an election issue. We don’t want any violence and killings but the creation of Bodoland through talks,” the Absu president said.