Guwahati, Dec. 25: Former two-time Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today said the law and order situation in Assam is worse than what it was in 1990, the year President’s rule was imposed in the state.

Mahanta said in 1990, when the AGP was in power, President’s rule was imposed on the ground that the sovereignty of the country was under threat.

The trigger was the incident of a manager and a few officials of a tea garden in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district being airlifted from Guwahati to Calcutta after they allegedly received threats from Ulfa militants.

“Now the situation is worse than what it was in 1990. Leave alone threat calls, innocent people have now been killed ruthlessly by militants,” Mahanta told the media this morning.

Mahanta, however, did not categorically demand President’s rule in the state but questioned the Centre as to what has stopped it from taking a decision similar to the one taken when he was the chief minister of the state.

The All Assam Tribal Sangha and All Bodo Students’ Union submitted memoranda to Union home minister Rajnath Singh, who today visited Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts where the NDFB (Songbijit) militants unleashed terror by killing innocent Adivasi people on Tuesday, demanding President’s rule in Assam.

BJP state president Siddhartha Bhattacharjya yesterday said they had submitted a memorandum to Singh with the same demand.

Mahanta asked the Centre to adopt a uniform policy in dealing with militant groups active in the state. He said while the Unified Command was used against Ulfa, it had not been requisitioned for operations against the NDFB (S) so far.

“There should be a specific uniform policy to handle militant groups. It is not right that one policy will be adopted against one group and not against another,” Mahanta said. He welcomed Singh’s visit but said both the central and the state governments have failed to maintain law and order in Assam.

Mahanta said the Centre was responsible in creating Bodo militancy. He said to destabilise the AGP government, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) had given arms training to a few Bodo youths, which was later disclosed by RAW officials.

On the other hand, Mahanta said by not conferring the Bharat Ratna to singer Bhupen Hazarika the Centre has again ignored the demand of the people of the state.

A delegation of the All Assam Students’ Union, led by its adviser Samujjal Bhattacharjya, also submitted a memorandum to Singh today demanding “absolute” security of life and property of the people.