Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: A hitherto unknown organisation has shot off a threat letter to Aminul Haque Laskar, the BJP’s lone Muslim MLA in Assam. The organisation fired the letter literally with two live bullets pasted.

Laskar (52), who represents the Sonai constituency in southern Assam’s Bengali-majority Barak Valley, received the letter three days ago from “Save Secure and Development Protection Force of Muslim, Barak Valley Zone” through India Post.

In the three-page letter, which was written with red ink and in Bengali language, the organisation threatened the MLA to quit the BJP within 15 days or be ready to get killed. The police heightened his security after he had filed an FIR. A case was also registered.

“Treat this letter very seriously or you will suffer. Despite being a Muslim, you are with the BJP and maintaining a solid rapport with the RSS. You have been instrumental in convincing Muslim youths to join the BJP and you are using them for selfish gain. You are also not hesitating to speak up against the Muslims. Ensure that people whom you had convinced into joining the BJP quit the party…

“It has also come to our knowledge that you endorsed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 before a Joint Parliamentary Committee. What do you think yourself to be? We will need just two minutes to destroy your building. Even if you move around with two dozen security personnel, they cannot protect your life. We want you to quit the BJP within 15 days. If you do not do it, you will be killed,” the organisation warned Laskar in the letter.

The MLA suspected that elements, which once ran syndicates, had sent him the letter.

“I never heard of such an organisation. After the BJP formed the government in Assam two years ago, it started going hard against elements running syndicates of Burmese betel nuts, urea, coal etc in my constituency. I too stood up against them. I suspect that the letter is the handiwork of people who suffered by the government’s actions,” Laskar told The New Indian Express.

He said after reviewing his security, the police increased the number of his personal security officers from three to four. The police advised him to keep the compound of his house sufficiently lit up and install more CCTV cameras.

“I am doing what I have been advised but I want the police to arrest the culprits at the earliest,” Laskar insisted.