Guwahati: Caught in the storm: A woman and her children take shelter at a relief camp in Kharupetiya, near Guwahati, yesterday. The death toll rose to 49, including 15 people shot by police. Around a lakh people have fled their homes. Pic/apAn additional 2,000 paramilitary troopers were yesterday rushed to Assam to quell clashes between Muslim migrants and tribal groups that forced locals to flee their homes. The death toll in weekend ethnic clashes in Assam that displaced more than 1 lakh people has mounted to 49. The authorities claimed the situation is slowly getting back to normal. "Since violence broke out on Friday, 49 people have died; 15 in police firing and the rest in separate incidents of clashes," said Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Eight of the injured victims died yesterday in different hospitals. Curfew is still in force with shoot-on-sight orders issued to the security forces. The clashes between members of the Bodo tribal group and Muslim settlers, originally from Bangladesh, have witnessed raids on numerous villages by groups armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows, spears and machetes.Set ablaze"They set on fire a large a number of homes in my village," said Dipali Basumatary, who had taken shelter in a government-run relief camp.Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the root cause was a programme of "ethnic cleansing" implemented by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a rebel group fighting for an independent tribal homeland. They want to drive out all non-Bodos from the area.
Source: www.mid-day.com
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