No fresh incidents of violence have been reported, from the troubled Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD) in the last 48 hours, even as the recovery of two more bodies and the death of an injured took the death toll to 31 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Assam’s Home Commissioner GD Triapthy informed that the two recovered bodies are from neighbouring Barpeta and Baksa district.A minor girl, Taslima Khatun (4), who received bullet injuries during the violence at Baksa on Thursday during the NDFB attack, succumbed to her injuries at Guwahati Medical College on Saturday.The security forces, who had intensified operations against the NDFB anti-talk faction militants, have killed three dreaded cadres — two in Sonitpur districts and one in adjacent Udalguri district on Sunday, informed the officials. A total of five cases have also been registered in connection with the violent incidents that took place in BTAD areas during the past 72 hours, they said.
A senior Home Department official said that Special Investigation Team from CID has already been rushed to Baksa district for an investigation so that cases can be smoothly handed over to National Investigating Agency.The Assam Government, however, has also moved a formal proposal for engagement of NIA to probe the violence, he said adding that an IG level officer of the NIA would arrive here on Monday to hold deliberations with the Government officials.He said that a Relief Camp has been established by Baksa district administration where 498 people from violent-affected areas under Gobardhana police station have taken shelter. “Intensive patrolling by security forces is continuing in all sensitive areas and that arrangements for security of vehicular traffic moving on the national high way and railway tracks were made,” he said, adding that the facility of police escort was provided to convoys particularly during the night.
Officials said that curfew had been relaxed for few hours in Chirang district on Sunday but it was still in force in Kokrajhar and Baksa.Earlier on Sunday, the people of Narayanguri and Khagrabari villages in Baksa district, which bore the maximum brunt of violence, refused to bury the bodies of the victims. They said they would not bury the dead until Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi personally visits the area and assures them of security and adequate compensation.
The protesters performed the last rites only after the State’s Border-area Development Minister Siddeque Ahmod, who was at the site, assured them of looking into the demands.