Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday appealed to different communities in Assam to live together. Referring to recent clashes between Bodos and minority immigrant settlers in the state, he said Assam is a typical example of a pluralistic society where communities like Bodos, minorities, Bengali Hindus, Adivasis, Rajbongshis and others live.
These five persons belonging to non-Bodo community were called for questioning on Tuesday and were taken into custody after they allegedly admitted their involvement in the crime, CBI sources said.
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 Asian Centre for Human Rights has in its report stated that the National Commission for Minorities is communalising the riots in Assam.
The violence in lower Assam has once again brought to the fore the problem of illegal migration and its impact on the socio-economic situation in the state, which had witnessed prolonged unrest on the explosive issue back in the 80s.
"The director of the film had asked me to see the movie in New Delhi but what I saw was really bad for the Bodo community as a whole," R S Mooshahary said.
The anti-talks faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland, a Bodo tribe separatist group led by its 'chairman' Ranjan Daimary on Thursday warned that it would kill 20 persons in case the security forces kill one Bodo youth in 'fake encounters'.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its two Assam allies -- the Asom Gana Parishad and the United People's Party Liberal -- on Wednesday 'almost finalised' their seat-sharing pact for the Assam assembly polls and a formal announcement will be made in a day or two, sources said.
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.
Three persons were injured in police firing at Donkamokam, in the violence-ravaged Karbi Anglog Hills district on Friday, even as the army staged flag march in the affected district headquarter town of Diphu.
"We did not vote for the BPF (Bodoland People's Front) candidate in Lok Sabha polls, that's why we were attacked," alleged 75-year-old Iman Ali.
The movement for a separate state of Telangana in the south is having its repercussion in northeast India too. Now, the Bodoland People's Front, a tribal political group comprising former insurgents, has stated that a separate state for the Bodo tribe in Assam would be a must if the Centre grants a Telengana state.
It was Haldar who had played a key role in making a peace process possible with a faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam. He is also negotiating with other tribal outfits in the region on behalf of the government of India.
Another Telengana is brewing in Assam with the state's largest tribal group, Bodos reviving their old demand for statehood and it is official now, thanks to the raging Telengana movement in Andhra Pradesh.
The Telangana issue has rekindled Bodo tribe's demand for statehood in Assam besides adding fire to the long-standing statehood demands of different other ethnic communities including Karbi, Dimasa, Koch-Rajbongshi.
A 15-year-old boy was killed and four others were injured on Monday when the owner of a tea estate allegedly fired at angry protesters, who set ablaze two garden factories and the owner's residence near Guwahati, the police said.
The surrender paves the way for the formation of an interim council that will administer the Bodo-dominated areas in the state.
The death toll in Assam's Udalguri and Darrang districts, dogged by clashes between Bodos and illegal Bangladeshi migrants, rose to 40 today with the violence spreading to neighbouring Chirang district.
In an unprecedented incident, a protestor from the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity, a peasants' group led by Right To Information activist Akhil Gogoi, died after setting himself ablaze in front of the high-security state secretariat complex in Guwahati on Monday.
The actual peace talks with the NDFB, whose original demand was for a separate homeland for Bodo tribe, was yet to get off as the outfit took a very long time to submit its charter of demands. "Now that we have submitted the charter of demands to New Delhi, it is now the turn of the government of India to show its sincerity to solve the NDFB problem and restore peace in Bodo heartland in Assam," NDFB spokesman S Sanjarang said.
The nation belongs to Muslims as much as it does to others, Modi said, accusing the Opposition of spreading confusion among them about the law.
A day after it was reported that a teenager was killed at the hands of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction) cadres, other organisations have slammed the state for failing to resolve the militancy along the border. Anurag Kashyap reports
Himanta Biswa Sarma -- who is also the North East Democratic Alliance convenor -- took the oath of office and secrecy in Assamese.
"It is for the first time that books in the newly recognised Bodo and Santhali language were selected for the awards," Narang said while declaring the awards.
BSF Director General R S Mooshahary would handover the appointment letters to the surrendered militants at the Kokrajhar District Sports Association indoor stadium, they said.
'This is the only place on earth where Elephas maximus climbs to these heights.'
With Pakistan continuing to violate the ceasefire, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has directed security forces not to hold back and retaliate with "double the force".
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
Even as the deadline set by agitating All Bodo Students' Union and All-Koch-Rajbongshi Students' Union for announcement of dates for tripartite talks by the Centre over their demand for separate state almost comes to an end, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi to apprise them of the situation back home.
An umbrella organization of several ethnic groups has decided to launch an agitation opposing the statehood demands raised by a number of ethnic groups in Assam. including Bodos, Karbis and Koch-Rajbongshis.
The league said last week that the deal, called 'Boost La Liga', would strengthen its clubs and give them funds to spend on new infrastructure and modernisation projects as well as increasing how much they could spend on players' salaries.
It was in July last year an unprecedented spell of communal riots broke out in the Bodoland Territorial Council area in Assam, involving the Bodo tribes and immigrant Muslim settlers.
People rendered homeless due to clashes between Bodos and minority immigrants have alleged lack of sufficient food, drinking water and medicines in relief camps, a charge denied by authorities.
To assess relief and rehabilitation requirements of violence-affected people, a team of seven senior central officials will visit Assam on Tuesday.
Worried about their security in the strife-torn Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council in Assam, the religious minority community living in the area has demanded that they must not be subjected to 'harassment' anymore in the name of detection of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
During scrutiny of over 24,000 and 8,000 applications filed for rehabilitation by the displaced Muslims in Kokrajhar and Chirang respectively, the administration found that 7,000 and 6,000 people had no land documents. He is a look at life in some of the camps
Spells of communal as well as ethnic violence, that have become the bane of life in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas of Assam, which have claimed 731 lives since 1993 in the area.
The recurrence of violence in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council (BTC) area of Assam during the last few days despite heavy deployment of forces and continued imposition of night curfew has proved that the hatred between the two communities -- involved in the clashes that erupted on July 21 last -- has run deeper than realised by the political leadership.
The United Liberation Front of Assam led by its fugitive commander in chief Paresh Barua has called upon all the indigenous ethnic groups in Assam including Bodo, Karbi, Dimasa others to join its armed revolution to liberate Assam from the clutches of the 'colonial Indian state'.
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