The All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union has lodged a first information report against officers of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for passing off the State’s Kimin town as part of Assam during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s programme on June 17.
The FIR that named BRO Chief Engineer Pramod Kumar and other officers of the organisation based in Kimin was lodged at the Itanagar police station on June 22.
Kimin, about 75 km from Itanagar, is in Papum Pare district of Arunachal Pradesh. However, the BRO had, during the inauguration of 12 road projects by Mr. Singh, allegedly passed off the place as Bilgarh in Assam.
“We have demanded an inquiry into what compelled the BRO to hide the name of Kimin and Arunachal Pradesh during the event of national importance that the Defence Minister attended,” the union’s president Hawa Bagang said.
The union has also set a 10-day deadline for the BRO to apologise to the people of the State for the “grave error, deliberate or otherwise”.
The union said its members would gherao the camps of General Reserve Engineer Force across the State if the BRO failed to apologise within the stipulated period. The officers may also be asked to leave the State, it added.
The union’s general secretary Tobom Dai said the BRO “sabotaged” the territorial integrity of Arunachal Pradesh that has had boundary disputes with Assam. The disputes are in court.
“The BRO’s act was intended to create dispute between the neighbours and also to disrupt the federal set-up of the country,” he said.
Mr. Singh had visited Kimin a week ago to inaugurate the 20-km-long Kimin-Potin road and 11 other BRO projects across the country, including one each in the Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir.
