GUWAHATI, Nov 17: Four members of a family were shot dead in the trouble torn Kokrajhar district under Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) last night.
Reports said armed miscreants numbering around 15 barged into the house of a family and shot them at Jayaguri. One died on the spot while three others succumbed in a local hospital.
With this, the number of people killed in the past one week has reached 11 in the BTAD.
Last night’s incident occurred even as the indefinite curfew was underway.
The incident also happened when the security forces personnel are hunting for the illegal weapons in the BTAD.
The police also arrested an executive member of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) for possessing weapons illegally.
Meanwhile, informing to media persons today, Esad Ali said that the armed men barged into his house and opened fire indiscriminately when they were about to go to bed. Esad Ali was injured critically.
In a separate incident, a woman was shot at by gunmen in Kokrajhar district last night.
Meanwhile, Mano K. Brahma, who is also a leader of Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and also an executive member of BTC was arrested from his Kokrajhar residence in the wee hours of Saturday. Two AK-47 rifles and 60 live cartridges, seized from his residence, were later sent for forensic test. Brahma’s arrest assumes significance given chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s recent assertion that a leader of a political party was involved in the violence.
Since Friday morning, as a pre-emptive measure, there has been a hectic drive against illegal weapons in the trouble torn Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) in Assam by the security forces.
The hunting for illegal weapons has become a matter of urgency as tension continues to persist in parts of Assam.
On Friday, for defying the prohibitory orders under section 144 CrPC, dozens of people, including a leader of Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), were detained by the police in Kokrajhar district.
Reports then said that 14 people have been picked by police in connection with the Thursday killing of one Nirisan Basumatary.
It can be noted here that about 5 lakh people were displaced and over 100 people got killed in the communal clashes in Assam since July this year.
Clashes between to communities in Assam started in the midddle of July which had resulted to the exodus of North East people residing in the mainland India mostly from southern cities.
The purported threats on the people of North East by certain groups of people propmted the former to flee their respective work places and study centres from Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and even from Mumbai.
This exodus episode had compelled the North East Students Organisation (NESO), an umbrella students’ bodies of the region to issue certain ultimatum to the Central government to be implemented.
Rallies and bandhs were called in the seven states of the region by various groups in protest against the alleged discrimination being meted out to the people hailing from this part of the country in mainland Indian cities.
The deputy chief minister of Karnataka had even visited Guwahati and Imphal as a good will mission appealing the people to return to their work places.
After a lull for about a month, communal tension prevails again in some parts of Assam after the Dhubri incident in late October.
The clashes of two groups of people including arson in the communally sensitive Dhubri district of Assam bordering Bangladesh late last month.
The adminstration had to clamp curfew and the army staged flag march as a pre-emptive measures.
With regard to the resurgence of clash in late October, it all began when a decorator of a Durga Puja pandal was stabbed by miscreants. And in protesrt against the incident as well as demanding to book the culprits, Dhubri Sarvajanik Durga Puja Sammanway Samiti called a bandh in Dhubri town where the protestors clashed with the police. But group clashes started leading to torching of several houses.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/four-shot-dead-in-renewed-clashes-at-assam/
