Kokrajhar (Assam), July 29 (ANI): Curfew was relaxed in Assam’s riot-hit Kokrajhar District on Sunday, a day before Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram is to visit the riot-hit areas of Assam.
Ethnic violence in Assam has forced tens of thousands to flee their razed homes and shut down road and rail transport.
People came out on the roads to stock their daily needs as the restrictions by army officials were also eased.
The indefinite curfew clamped in the Kokrajhar district was relaxed for the day while night curfew between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. will continue in the other affected districts, official sources said.
The official death toll remained at 53 and there was no report of any fresh incident of violence.
Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts are the worst hit among five affected districts, the two others being Bongaigaon and Baksa in the tribals-minority immigrants clashes.
More than three lakh people have been affected in the violence that went on for eight days and most of them are sheltered in relief camps.
With law and order situation improving, the district administrations are taking measures to persuade victims to return to their homes.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday visited Kokrajhar and announced a Rs.300 crore rehabilitation package and declared that a probe will be held to ascertain the cause of the clashes. throughout the city.
Elated over the curfew relaxation, Lal Bahadur, a resident of Kokrajhar, said there is a sigh of relief with curfew being relaxed.
“The situation is much better than before; most of the shops, which were earlier forcedly closed, are now being reopened. Things are heading towards normalcy,” said Bahadur.
Beaming shopkeepers and street vendors were seen reopening their shops much to relief of the locals, who could venture out due to curfew restrictions.
“Earlier, the situation here was very bad and now the situation is better here and many shops have been reopened,” said Chander, another resident.
Ethnic clashes erupted between Bodo tribals and Muslim settlers on the night of July 20, when unidentified men killed four youths in the district.
In retaliation, armed Bodos attacked Muslims, suspecting them of being behind the killings.
Security personnel were issued ‘shoot at sight’ orders as they struggled to enforce curfew to contain clashes between Bodo tribals and Muslim settlers in the remote northeastern state bordering Bangladesh.
The death toll from clashes between Bodo tribes’ people and Muslim settlers rose to 44, Assam’s chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, said after police reported that they had recovered more bodies overnight. Police also opened fire on groups armed with sticks and spears for violating curfew.
Also, violence victims surrounded a legislator from Dhubri, Jahanuddin Ahmed and manhandled him, which forced him to flee the spot.
The sufferers claimed that the legislator and other such political figures were not concerned about providing relief to the victims.
Fearing for their lives, tens of thousands of Muslims and Bodos have fled their homes in remote hamlets along the border with Bhutan, and sought shelter in camps in larger towns.
Roving armed bands have set ablaze hundreds of tin-roofed homes, many made of hay and clay, in the nearly weeklong orgy of violence.
The federal government delayed in dispatching security forces to the violence-hit districts in India’s northeastern state of Assam where ethnic clashes claimed at least 45 lives and rendered nearly 3,00,000 people homeless. Bodos have felt marginalised in their homeland by waves of immigration since the 1950s, accusing the central government of allowing the flow of immigrants to win votes from the settlers.
In recent years, Hindu and Christian tribes have vented strong anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment against settlers from mostly Muslim Bangladesh, which neighbours Assam.
The New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), a government-funded think tank in one of its reports had noted that the government’s failure to develop a coherent policy to deal with the ethnically volatile region meant Assam would remain vulnerable to ethnic clashes and communal tensions in the near future.
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