ULFA violence continues unabated, toll rises to 68

TOI, January 8

GUWAHATI: Violence by the ULFA in Assam continued unabated on as the banned group gunned down two migrant workers, taking the toll in attacks on non-Assamese people to 68, and carried out two bomb blasts even as additional army and paramilitary forces were deployed for counter-insurgency operations.

After targeting Hindi-speaking people in Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sibsagar since Friday, heavily armed ULFA cadres raided a village in Golaghat district -- hitherto not affected by the violence -- and killed two labourers and injured another person. At least seven persons, including two CRPF personnel, were injured when two bombs concealed by the ULFA in bicycles exploded near an army cantonment at Satgaon, police said.

The Centre rushed 2,000 additional paramilitary personnel to Assam and the army intensified operations against the ULFA by deploying over 10,000 troops in upper Assam, where most of the attacks were carried out.

State government spokesman and Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma said district administrations had been asked to provide security to migrant labourers, who would be taken to a designated place after the day's work. The Assam government also took measures to ensure that events did not take a communal turn, especially in the wake of a SMS campaign carried out in Tinsukia by "vested interests".

Panic-stricken migrants headed for railway stations in Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sibsagar to return to their home states though the administration denied there was an exodus.

The fleeing migrants, mostly women, children and old men who sold milk or worked as daily wage labourers, told reporters they were waiting to board the next available train for Bihar.

Earlier in the day, two brick kiln labourers succumbed to injuries sustained in an ULFA attack in the Assam Medical College Hospital in Dibrugarh. Curfew was clamped in Dibrugarh town from 1:40 pm to prevent migrant workers from taking out a procession with bodies of six persons killed in the district, officials said.

Curfew was also in force in Tinsukia subdivision and Tinsukia town of neighbouring Tinsukia district. Governor Lt Gen (retired) Ajai Singh accused ULFA's self-styled "commander-in-chief" Paresh Baruah of trying to engineer a "movement against non-Assamese people".

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said people should register their protest "against such madness and the message should go out loud and clear that violence is alien to our culture".

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who visited Dibrugarh and Tinsukia to meet victims of the violence, said the ULFA had resorted to violence to make its presence felt as it had become a "dead organisation". All precautionary measures had been taken to ensure that passengers in trains to and from Assam passing through Bihar did not face any retaliatory attacks, he said.

The influential All Assam Students Union and Purvottar Hindustani Sanmelan issued a joint call to people to maintain calm in the wake of the massacre of Hindi-speaking people and their exodus to other states.

Defence Minister A K Antony, who chaired a meeting of the three service chiefs and defence secretary to take stock of the situation in Assam, will travel to Tezpur on Tuesday with army chief Gen J J Singh.