After a gap of nearly three months, suspected National Democratic Front of Bodoland anti-talk faction insurgents in Assam, have launched a series of attacks gunning down one woman and injuring three others in two separate incidents in Kokrajhar district taking the toll to three in the last three days.
A tea garden owner was gunned down and his security guard was seriously injured by suspected National Democratic Front of Bodoland anti-talk faction insurgents in Assam's Sonitpur district on Tuesday.
Ethnic violence continued in lower Assam's Kokrajhar district claiming the life of a farmer on Monday.
Despite Speaker Meira Kumar admitting an adjournment motion by the Bharatiya Janata Party on the issue, members including those of BJP, Shiv Sena, Bodoland People's Front and All India United Democratic Front trooped into the Well condemning the violence.
The Assam government on Friday said only genuinely displaced people in the recent clashes between Bodos and migrants would be rehabilitated in the affected Bodoland Territorial Areas District and Dhubri districts.
The situation in Bodoland Territorial Area districts and Dhubri in Assam, hit by violence between Bodos and minority immigrants, is slowly limping back to normal.
Even as the Centre directed Bodoland Territorial Council Chief Executive Member Hagrama Mohilary and the president of the All India United Democratic Front Badruddin Ajmal Qasmi to "restrain their supporters and restore peace with immediate effect," the Ministry of Home Affairs Joint Secretary in charge of the North East Shambhu Singh is personally camping in the riot affected Kokrajhar district.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday hinted at the involvement of a third force behind the raging ethnic violence in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council (BTC) areas of Kokrajhar and Chirang.
Fresh violence on Wednesday rocked the trouble-torn Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts in Assam where the Rajdhani Express was attacked by some persons even as the entire train services to and from the Northeast was hit.
Six persons have been killed and 10 others injured in separate incidents of clashes in Kokrajhar district under Bodoland Territorial Council of Assam forcing the administration to impose indefinite curfew in Kokrajhar town and Section 144 CrPC in the entire district.
The court of the session judge in Kamrup district of Assam on Thursday granted bail to top militant leader and the self-styled chairman of outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland Ranjan Daimary who was named the prime accused in the Assam serial blasts that had killed 98 people and left over 400 maimed on October 30, 2008.
Normalcy is returning to the violence-affected districts of Baksa and Kokrajhar under Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts Council areas in Assam. The state government claims that there has been no incident in the last 48 hours as the security apparatus along with army is working relentlessly to restore peace.
Bodoland Peoples' Front Member of Legislative Assembly Pradeep Brahma, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the recent violence in Assam, has been granted bail by the Gauhati high court.
A group of prominent policy makers, scholars, activists and intellectuals have called to 'Reduce rhetoric, spread goodwill, not ill-will' in Assam in the wake of the violence that rocked Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council and adjoining areas in later part of July that drove lakhs out of their homes and left about 98 persons dead from Bodo and Muslim communities.
The winter session of the Assam assembly started on a stormy note on Monday over the issue of availability of illegal weapons in the communally sensitive Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas that was rocked by a spell of riots involving Bodo tribe and Muslim communities during July this year that left over 100 dead and rendered about 4 lakh homeless.
'Tarun Gogoi is incompetent to be chief minister. We heard Intelligence had warned him about possible aggression. Why did Gogoi fail to react?' 'Modi and his men have been spreading separatist messages across Assam for years. There is no way the BJP can shake off its responsibility now.' Former Assam minister Rameswar Dhanowar, who demanded Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's resignation for his failure to prevent the recent violence in Bodoland Territorial Areas District, speaks to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com
The Gauhati high court on Thursday granted bail to Pradeep Brahma, Bodo People's Front MLA of Kokrajhar (West) constituency in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council area, who was arrested on August 22 on charges of inciting the mob during the recent flare-up in the region
After imposing ban on calling bandh in the state by various organisations with immediate effect, Assam government has imposed ban on holding all kinds of procession, rallies etc in the State for one month in view of the sensitive situation prevailing in the state in the wake of communal violence in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council and adjoining areas.
Jaideep Saikia, noted terrorism and conflict analyst who has authored the book, Terror Sans Frontiers tells rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa that the communal explanation -- that is being touted in certain circles amid the recent violence that has erupted in Assam's Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District -- is flawed.
The opposition Asom Gana Parishad on Friday organised a massive rally of its supporters and people in Guwahati to register its protest against the 'failure' of the Assam government to stop occurrence of violence in Bodoland Territorial Council and adjoining areas as well as demanding deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants from the state.
Over 1,700 inmates have taken shelter in relief camps in trouble-torn Kokrajhar and Chirang districts of Assam since on Thursday following tension in the wake of a Bodo member of Legislative Assembly's arrest.
The Bodoland People's Front (BPF) on Thursday said that its legislator, Pradeep Brahma, had been arrested on baseless charges by the police and reiterated that he must be released immediately without any condition.
The anti-talk faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom on Friday blamed "infighting" within the ruling Congress party in Assam for the violence between Bodos and minorities. The outfit claimed that people in Bodoland Territorial Area Districts are being made "political scapegoat" for the sake of individual ambitions of leaders.
The Assam government has decided to hand over all cases related to the ethnic violence -- that recently rocked Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts of Assam -- to the Central Bureau of Investigation to nab the culprits who masterminded the violence.
Authorities in the Bodoland Territorial Council have called for a phase-wise rehabilitation to ensure that no outsiders get rehabilitated in the area taking advantage of the adverse situation in Assam.
A bomb exploded on a railway track minutes after the Howrah-Guwahati down Garib Rath Express passed Goabari in lower Assam''s Kokrajhar district early on Sunday morning.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday accused the Tarun Gogoi-led Assam government of not taking timely steps to contain the conflict in violence-hit districts of lower Assam.
For reasons political as well as social, the Bodo tribe and the agrarian religious minority community have been living for decades in an atmosphere of mistrust under the jurisdiction of the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous district Council.
The toll in continuing violence in western Assam reached 25 on Tuesday after four persons were killed in police firing in Kokrajhar district, where shoot-at-sight orders and indefinite curfew remained in force.
Shoot-at-sight orders were issued and indefinite curfew clamped in entire Kokrajhar district of Assam following fresh violence on Monday, as the toll in the ethnic violence mounted to 19.
Two more bodies were recovered on Monday taking the toll to 19 in the violence in Assam's Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts, as the Rajdhani Express was stopped by protestors in Kokrajhar district, police said.
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
A couple days after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi pledged to focus on ensuring security and welfare of women and girl child in Assam in the wake of ghastly Delhi-bus rape of a student and her subsequent death, a senior leader of his party (Congress) was Thursday arrested by Assam police on charges of rape.
The situation in Assam's trouble-torn Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts was "moving towards normalcy" and police have set up 119 new police pickets to help rehabilitation of the affected people, official sources said on Tuesday.
In fresh incidents of violence, five persons were injured when miscreants attacked two families in two separate incidents in Kokrajhar district on Sunday even as the situation in violence-affected areas of Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council in Assam continued to remain tense despite curfew remaining in force.
Five persons were killed in fresh violence in lower Assam's Chirang district on Saturday taking the toll to 85 since ethnic trouble erupted last month.
In a major setback to the efforts to woo the anti-talks faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland led by Ranjan Daimary to dialogue with the government of India, the outfit has re-elected its 'National Council' dropping Daimary from the new panel.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday agreed that presence of sufficient forces in time would have prevented the ethnic violence raging in the state from assuming such menacing proportions.
The recent bouts of violence by suspected Bodo militias that killed over 30 hapless 'Muslims, mostly children and women, and rendered several thousands homeless in lower Assam recently, once again offers a shocking glimpse of the horrendous game of violent communalism being played by the Congress government of Assam in furtherance of its cynical power politics for the last several years.' 'The result is, the state is a simmering communal cauldron that sporadically erupts at the slightest real or imagined provocation,' says R N Ravi.