Death toll rises to 32
Guwahati: Nine more bodies were recovered from a village in Baksa district on Saturday morning, taking the toll to 32 in the violence unleashed by NDFB-Songbijit militants in Bodoland Territorial Administration Districts (BTADC) area in Assam.
The bodies of the victims, including four children and two women, were recovered from Khagrabari village under Salbari sub-division adjacent to the Manas National Park, official sources said on Saturday.
Bodies of two children were identified as Ilina Khatun and Ariful Islam.
Three children, aged between seven and ten years, who were hiding in a forest on the banks of river Beki were also rescued, the sources said.
Besides Chirang and parts of Dhubri districts, indefinite curfew has also been imposed in Kokrajhar and Baksa districts where 23 people were killed.
The Army has been staging flag marches in the violence-hit areas to instill confidence among people and to bring the situation under control, the sources said.
The violence started when heavily armed NDFB-S militants entered a house and shot dead three members of a family, including two women, and injured an infant of a minority community near Ananda Bazar area in Baksa district on Thursday.
This was followed by indiscriminate firing by the insurgents at Balapara-I village in neighbouring Kokrajhar district in the early hours Friday which left eight persons dead and injuring several others in their own houses.
On Friday night, 12 bullet-riddled bodies, including those of five women and a child, were recovered from Nankekhadrabari and Nayanguri villages in Baksa district where nearly 100 houses and a wooden bridge were set ablaze by the ultras.
Meanwhile, police fired in the air at Basbari in Baksa district when a mob armed with spears and sticks tried to set ablaze a Forest Range office on Saturday morning.
The agitators complained that their houses had been burnt down by militants and government had failed to protect their lives and property, official sources said.
A total of 22 people have so far been arrested in connection with the violence.
Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) A P Rout told reporters that investigation had revealed involvement of NDFB(S) in the violence.
Six of the ten companies of paramilitary forces sent by the Centre to tackle the situation have reached Assam with three of them sent to Kokrajhar and two to Baksa, Rout said.
Another company was on way to Udalguri district under BTAD as a preventive measure, he said.
On operations by army to control the situation, the ADGP said counter-insurgency operations by the troops were on for a long time, but now extra forces ad been posted there in view of the current situation. (PTI)