Two days after the Assam government announced plans to release the Tewary Commission report on the 1983 Nellie massacre, a group of people on Saturday (October 25, 2025) expressed concern that the move could threaten inter-communal peace.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters on Thursday that the state cabinet has decided to table the Tewary Commission report in the next assembly session in November.
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More than 2,000 people were killed in the Nellie incident, which occurred on 18 February 1983, during the height of Assam’s anti-foreigner agitation. The victims were Muslim migrants, mostly women and children.
“I don’t understand why such an old report will be published almost 43 years after the incident. When the wounds have already healed, why scratch them now? Is this being done to rile the people ahead of the council elections?” Leader of Opposition Debabrata Saikia told PTI.
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He said when people live in harmony in the wider Nellie area, tabling the report may destabilize the prevailing peace and trust between the communities.
“The CM seems frustrated that people of all castes and religions have united after the death of Zubeen Garg. People from all communities are demanding justice for him and showing loyalty to Garg’s ideology which was against communalism,” Saikia said.
Nellie (in Morigaon) is a cluster of about 16 villages. On 18 February 1983, Assamese Hindus and indigenous tribal neighbors attacked the villages, killing over 2,100 people in the space of about six hours.
The attacked residents belonged mainly to the Bengali-speaking Muslim community, whose ancestors had migrated from the former East Bengal as early as the 1930s.
On 14 July 1983, the Assam Government set up a commission headed by TP Tewary.
The 551-page report was submitted to the former Hiteswar Saikia government in May 1984, but was never tabled or made public.
Parthajit Baruah, who has made a feature film on the massacre – ‘Nellie’s Story’ – felt that the release of the report at a time when the entire state is mourning Garg’s death is “surprising and disappointing”.
“The time is not auspicious now. People are emotionally broken. We expect the government to reveal the truth about Garg’s death at the first instance,” he said.
Mr. Baruah also said that the presentation and discussion of the Tewary report is likely to divert all attention from Garg’s case.
“There is one more aspect. Contrary to the popular notion that only Bengali Muslims were killed in the massacre, many indigenous people also died in the Raha incident. I have shown this angle in my film, which surprisingly has not been talked about in the society,” he said.
According to the research paper “Denial of Enmity: Understanding Narratives of Harmony from the Nellie Massacre, 1983” by Jabeen Yasmeen of IIT-Bombay, the massacre was one of the worst mass killings in post-independent India.
“It is debatable whether the Nellie massacre should be called a massacre and not a genocide… it should rather be called a genocide because of the intent of the attackers to wipe out a particular community,” she said.
Handique Girls’ College (Political Science) professor Pallavi Deka told PTI that the Nellie massacre is a historical event that is still relevant in Assam politics.
“This decision is an offshoot of that relevance. Given the turn of events after Garg’s death and the decision to release the report, it needs to be analyzed together,” she said.
Ms Deka said the current government’s “effort to make the most of it is obvious”, given the timing of the planned report.
Defending the decision, Mr Sarma said the document had not been submitted so far as the copy with the Assam government did not have the chairman’s signature.
“We didn’t know if the copy we have is genuine. So we interviewed officials and officials from the time who were involved in the report. The document was also sent to the forensics department for verification. When it was verified, we decided to make it public because people have a right to know what happened and whose fault it was,” he said.
All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) president Utpal Sarma has come out in support of the government and told PTI that it was wrong to keep such an important document under wraps for so long.
“It was a commission set up by the government. So why other governments did not bring it up is a big question. Also, we will not allow the demand for justice against Garg to be diverted because of this report,” he said.
A total of 688 cases were filed after the Nellie massacre. The police filed chargesheets in 310 cases. When the Assam Accord was signed in 1985, the perpetrators were given complete impunity – a major aspect that indicated the denial of the horrific incident.
Ms. Yasmeen wrote in her newspaper, “Despite the prevailing tension and warnings from senior police officials, (Assembly) elections were held on February 14 and 17, 1983. The leaders of the Assam movement called upon the people to boycott the elections.” “While the majority of Assamese society abstained, a section of the Bengali-speaking Muslim minority voted, which infuriated the leaders of the Assam movement. It is believed that the participation of a section of the Bengali-speaking Muslim minority led to the massacre,” she added.
The research paper also quoted various scholars and claimed that the local Lalung (Tiwa) tribe and other proper Hindus in and around Nellie were provoked into believing that the land abandoned by the Bengali-speaking Muslims would become theirs after the massacre.
Published – 25 Oct 2025 19:31 IST
