By IANS
Guwahati : An indefinite curfew was clamped in Assam’s main city of Guwahati Saturday after five people were killed and more than 130 wounded, 30 of them critically, in a mob attack on tribal protesters.
Trouble began when about 10,000 Adivasi or tribal people, backed by the All Assam Adivasi Students’ Association (AAASA), took out a protest march through the city streets demanding scheduled tribe status.
“Residents of Guwahati and the protesters clashed in the streets after the agitators went on a rampage damaging about 100 vehicles and destroying shops. The angry locals retaliated by attacking the protesters in which five Adivasi people were killed,” a senior police official said wishing not to be named.
Police fired teargas shells to disperse the protesters when they tried to break a security cordon to take out the march through the city streets.
“Local residents armed with sticks and iron rods, besides crude implements, attacked the fleeing protesters and beat them mercilessly,” Parag Moni Aditya, a witness, said.
“The mob attack took place after the protesters started damaging vehicles and shops belonging to commoners in the area,” the police official said.
Police and paramilitary troopers later blocked a major stretch of the city to prevent the protesters from being attacked by the mob.
“An indefinite curfew was enforced as a precautionary measure with the army kept on standby in the city,” C.K. Das, a magistrate, said.
The injured, including women, were shifted to hospitals.
“The condition of at least 30 of the injured is very serious,” a doctor at the Guwahati Medical College said.
The tribals are mostly engaged in Assam’s tea plantations and account for about six percent of the state’s 26 million people.
A security alert was sounded across Assam with authorities fearing a possible backlash by the Adivasis on Assamese pockets in areas dominated by tea gardens.
“We appeal for calm and restraint and urge everybody not to give a political colour to the incident,” Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Meanwhile, the AAASA has called a 36-hour statewide general strike beginning Sunday morning to protest the killings.