Indian Customs officials have arrested five individuals from West Bengal and Assam for their involvement in smuggling high-end used cars from Bhutan. The investigation revealed a widespread network of forged documents and illegal vehicle registrations.
'Losing a house is a terrible feeling... We were not given enough time to shift our belongings.'
People from the Hindu community blocked roads in Hojai during the day, alleging that some pieces of meat were thrown by miscreants on Saturday night, and while Muslims also held another roadblock and the police had to use batons to disperse protesters, a senior officer said.
His associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan of Panipat got converted to Islam, while his wife is a Bangladeshi national, he added.
The student was detained three days after the ISIS India head Haris Farooqi alias Harish Ajmal Farukhi and his associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan were arrested in Dhubri district after they had crossed over from Bangladesh.
Rahul claimed that the Assam CM has taken land in Kaziranga National Park.
The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers along with their tributaries are in spate, even as floodwaters started receding from a few areas, they said.
Security personnel had to resort to firing when a mob tried to storm into a vote counting station in western Assam's Dhubri district at around 10.30 am on Friday today, killing three persons and injuring at least five.
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.
Three persons, including the president and general secretary of the Assam Miya Parishad, have been detained for their alleged association with terror outfits, police said.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said he would visit places in Nandigram, where post-poll violence was allegedly reported.
The All Asom Koch Rajbongshi Students' Union activists stopped the bus, which was traveling from Cooch Behar in West Bengal to Assam's North Lakhimpur, on National Highway 31 near Golakganj late on Friday. The activists pelted stones at the private bus, hurled two petrol bombs and locked the doors of the burning vehicle with the passengers inside, Mahanta said. The injured said they broke the front windshield and window panes to get out of the burning bus.
In a record turnout, more than 90 per cent voters exercised their franchise in 14 constituencies in Assam in the second and final phase of just concluded assembly polls.
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.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday visited violence-displaced people lodged in three relief camps in Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri to gauge the rehabilitation measures undertaken by the administration.
Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Saturday visited the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam's Dhubri district to review security measures, particularly in the riverine areas, following allegations of unabated illegal influx.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday met victims of ethnic violence in relief camps and held discussions with Bodoland Territorial Council leaders on the prevailing situation in Assam.
Altogether 13 refugees have died while over hundred have been affected by malaria in camps in Assam's Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts, which were rocked by recent violence, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday.
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.
Chidambaram, who left for Dhubri early Tuesday morning from Guwahati in a special chopper and landed at the Panbari BSF camp, visited two other camps -- Borkanda and Takimari.
At least 35 people were drowned and many more were missing when a countryboat carrying 250 people capsized in the Brahmaputra river in Assam's Dhubri district on Monday evening.
Rediff.com takes a look at life inside a relief camp in Kokrajhar, which was the epicenter of the recent ethnic violence, which claimed 77 lives.
One more person was killed in police firing during clashes between minority immigrants and Bodos in lower Assam's Dhubri district even as fresh violence in Baksa district left four persons seriously injured on Thursday.
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.
In the wake of violent ethnic clashes, the Army staged a flag march in violence-affected Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts of Assam on Wednesday morning.
Assam remained cut off from the rest of the country by rail as train services remained suspended all over the state, with hundreds of Assam-bound passengers being stranded in Coochbehar in West Bengal on the border with Assam and other places
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.
Seven persons went missing on Friday evening after a boat carrying 22 persons on board capsized on the Champavati river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, in Bongaigaon district of western Assam.
Six more bodies were recovered on Wednesday even as the Border Security Force and the National Disaster Response Force continued operations to trace over 200 people who went missing after their boat capsized in the Brahmaputra river in Dhubri district of Assam on Monday evening.
Rescuers are continuing the search for nearly 230 passengers of the ill-fated motor-boat that capsized in Brahmaputra River in Assam's Dhubri district on Monday evening.
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 visit of a high-level delegation of revenue officials from Bangladesh to India-Bangladesh border areas in Dhubri sector in western Assam has triggered sharp protests by political and non-political groups in Assam.
With improvement in the situation in strife-torn lower Assam areas where 56 people lost their lives, curfew was on Tuesday relaxed in Kokrajhar for two more hours, while night curfew continued in Chirang and Dhubri district.
The Centre has authorised the Assam government to deploy more than 11,000 paramilitary personnel in the state's violence-hit districts and dispatched a C-135 heavy lift aircraft with medical teams and supplies.
With the recovery of a ody in the violence-hit lower Assam districts, the death toll in the unrest on Friday rose to 45, while the army staged flag marches in worst-hit Kokrajhar and curfew was relaxed in some of the affected districts.
Altogether 2,92,852 inmates are currently living in 228 relief camps in four trouble-torn districts of lower Assam, while 10,636 inmates having left the camps during the last 24 hours.
The Congress and All India United Democratic Front will battle it out in the seven constituencies of Assam's minority-dominated Dhubri district bordering Bangladesh in the second phase of polling on April 11.
At least 23 people were killed, including women and children, and 44 others injured when a speeding bus collided with a truck in lower Assam's Dhubri district in the early hours on Tuesday.
Seven terrorists were gunned down by the army at Bashbari in Dhubri district of western Assam bordering Bangladesh at around 3.15 am on Friday and a huge cache arms and ammunition was recovered. Security sources informed that acting a tipoff that a group of terrorists was passing in the area, the amy laid an ambush in Bashbari area.
Two policemen were killed and as many injured when a police team was ambushed by anti-talk militants of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songjibit) faction at a remote place between Paneriguri and Makrijhara in Dhubri district on Thursday, the police said.