From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Indefinite curfew was clamped in violence-affected Chirang district of Assam on Sunday as tension ran high after fresh violence sparked due to recovery of four more bodies, taking the death toll in the current spell of violence that erupted on July 21 last to 62.
A senior official of Chirang district informed that the indefinite curfew had to be clamped to prevent further flare-up of the situation as tension mounted in the district following recovery of the bodies of two persons who had gone missing on Saturday. Two more bodies were also recovered from Borlao village in the district on Sunday.
A mob blocked the National Highway 31 at Bortola in Chirang district on Sunday morning after the recovery of bodies of two auto-rickshaw drivers from the district at Karigaon on the bank of Champabati River in neighbouring Kokrajhar district. The two persons had gone missing on Saturday.
Police had to resort to lathi-charge and blank firing at Bortola after the mob damaged a bus belonging to Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) injuring the driver and the helper.
Meanwhile, night curfew remains enforced in the remaining three violence-hit districts – Kokrajhar, Baksa and Dhubri. At least 13 houses were set on fire by unidentified miscreants at Chengnala village under Dotoma police station in Kokrajhar district in the wee hours of Sunday.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has constituted a Group of Ministers
(GoM) to monitor the operations to provide relief and rehabilitate the violence-displaced persons. Government has asked the violence-hit to return to their villages from relief camps by August 15 in view of ‘improvement in security scenario’. The GOM will be chaired by senior minister Prithbi Majhi , while the members include N S Deka, Tanka Bahadur Rai, Gautom Roy, Dr Nazrul Islam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Rockybul Hussain and Chandan Brahma.
The government has started the process of setting up of 112 fixed security pickets in violence-ravaged villages in Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts to provide security for return of violence-hit people from relief camps.