Guwahati: At least ten villagers were killed, eight injured when armed miscreants attacked a forest village inside Behali Reserve Forest in Assam near Assam-Arunachal Pradesh boundary on Wednesday afternoon, according to reports received here on Wednesday night.
According to an official source, a group of armed miscreants from Arunachal Pradesh side stormed into Chaoldhuwa forest village inside Behali reserve forest area in Sonitpur district of north Assam and opened indiscriminate fire on innocent unarmed villagers killing at least ten and injuring eight others.
Another three villagers went missing after the attack.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi who is now in New Delhi, directed the chief secretary and the DGP to rush additional forces to the affected area for protection of villagers on Assam side of the inter-state boundary even as the Opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) blamed the Congress government for failing to take timely action to protect the villagers in the bordering area.
AGP’s working president Atul Bora stated that tension was brewing in the area for over a month because of attempt by miscreants from Arunachal Pradesh to encroach upon Assam’s land inside Behali Reserve Forest.
Seven of the killed persons were identified as Himangshu Subba, Bhalu Subba, Tamrukhel Subba, Ganesh Newar, Prabhat Subba, Moneswar Barman and Rupchand Munda.
The injured were admitted to hospital.
A team of Assam Police and CRPF personnel were rushed to the affected borer village in the evening. Though tension was palpable in the area for quite sometime because of sporadic clashes between villagers from both side of the inter-state boundary over land dispute, adequate security measures were not taken by the governments from both the states to prevent any untoward incident.
