By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS
Guwahati : The toll in the overnight massacre of Hindi-speaking migrant workers in Assam rose to 14 Saturday with the discovery of three more bodies as security forces across the state have been put on a maximum alert, officials said.
Heavily armed militants late Friday attacked sleeping villagers at Dolamara in Karbi Anglong district, about 250 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“The death toll now stands at 14 with three more bodies recovered by police during the day,” Lajja Ram Bishnoi, deputy inspector general of police in Karbi Anglong district, told IANS over telephone.
The nearly dozen-odd rebels shot dead the villagers, some of them asleep, after barging into their homes and later set two houses ablaze.
“Some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition,” Bishnoi said.
All the victims belonged to two families and all were Hindi-speaking petty cultivators engaged in tilling land of villagers in the area.
The police blamed the attack on the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), both working in tandem in parts of Karbi Anglong district.
“We suspect it to be a joint attack with the militants entering their houses and gunning down some of the victims who were sleeping at that time,” Bishnoi said.
The dead include four women and two children belonging to two families originally hailing from the eastern state of Bihar but who have been living in Assam for decades.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Saturday visited violence-ravaged Karbi Anglong district and met families of those killed and interacted with top police, civil and army officials.
“The attacks are barbaric and show the militants’ inhuman nature as they killed women and children without any qualms,” Gogoi told IANS.
The state government Saturday announced a massive military deployment in the area and pledged to thwart further attacks linked to the Independence Day celebrations next week.
Stepped up attacks and a wave of bombings since Sunday has so far claimed 27 lives and wounded close to 50 people.
In two separate bombings late Friday, the ninth such explosions in Assam since Sunday, a child was killed and 18 people were wounded in parts of Karbi Anglong district.
“There was a grenade explosion in a small village killing a two-year-old child and injuring nine others. Prior to that a bomb exploded at a marketplace in the district headquarters of Diphu wounding nine more,” the police official said.
This is the second major attack on Hindi-speaking migrant workers in the last four days – eight people from two families were killed in a similar attack Wednesday night in the same Karbi Anglong district.
The attacks are reminiscent of the wave of killings by the ULFA in January targeting Hindi-speakers in which about 80 people, most of them Hindi-speakers, were killed.
Thousands of migrant workers from Bihar have made Assam their home for decades and are doing odd jobs as brick kiln workers, fishermen, and as daily wage earners.
The ULFA, a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland since 1979, had earlier vowed to free the state of all non-Assamese workers saying people from outside the state were taking local jobs away.
Rebels in insurgency-hit Assam, the largest among the seven northeastern states, have for years been boycotting the Independence Day and Republic Day celebrations to protest the central government’s rule over the vast region rich in oil, tea and timber.
The run-up to the events has always been violent, with rebels of the outlawed ULFA striking vital installations including crude oil pipelines, trains and road and rail bridges, besides targeting federal soldiers.
More than 30 rebel armies operate in the northeastern states, their demands ranging from secession to greater autonomy and the right to self-determination.