New Delhi - India's north-eastern state of Assam deployed
thousands of additional police to stem clashes between Bodo tribals
and Muslim migrants from Bangladesh that have claimed 40 lives and
displaced as many as 80,000 villagers, officials said Monday.
The clashes erupted in Udalgiri and Darrang districts about 70
kilometres north of state capital Guwahati on Friday evening.
The violence spread to the Baksa and Sonitpur districts in the
region and on Monday clashes between Muslims and the Rabhas tribe
were reported from the western district of Goalpara.
'A total of 40 people were killed, 23 in group clashes while 17
died in police firing to quell the raging mobs,' Assam Health
Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said from Guwahati by telephone.
'Some new deaths were reported in fresh clashes and more charred
bodies were found in the worst-hit areas of Udalgiri and Darrang,
where hundreds of houses were torched, raising the death toll,' he
added.
The state administration said there were reports of sporadic
violence from different areas and the situation was 'tense but under
control.'
Most of the victims were Muslims who had illegally migrated from
neighbouring Bangladesh and settled on vacant land in Assam. The
Bodos are an ethnic tribal people indigenous to northern Assam.
Over 80,000 people were forced to flee their homes as a result of
the violence and were lodged in government-run relief camps in the
districts, Sarma added.
State officials said an additional 2,600 police and paramilitary
personnel were sent to the five restive districts where curfews had
already been imposed.
Sarma said a Bodo militant group called the National Democratic
Front of Bodoland (NDFB), that is fighting for an independent tribal
homeland, was instrumental in triggering the violence.
'The violence is under planned ethnic cleansing by NDFB who want
to drive out all non-Bodos from the area. We have already arrested
some NDFB cadre in this connection who were involved in the
killings,' he added.
The NDFB is a majority Christian organization whose leader Ranjan
Daimary is believed to be operating out of Bangladesh. The group had
entered a ceasefire with the Indian government in 2005, but did not
given up its independence struggle.
'We are investigating reports of the involvement of the NDFB in
the clashes and if proved we shall be forced to call off the
ceasefire,' Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told the IANS news
agency.
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