7 killed, 50 wounded in clashes between two communities in Assam
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Guwahati, India, Oct 4, IRNA
India-Assam-Clashes
Indian authorities Saturday issued shoot-on-sight orders and imposed an indefinite curfew in Assam where seven people were killed and more than 50 wounded in clashes between two communities even as armed miscreants torched cluster of villages overnight, officials said.
"We have asked police, paramilitary and army soldiers to shoot anybody found indulging in violent activities," Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta, Inspector General of Assam Police (Law and Order), said.
Violence broke out Friday between two communities near the town of Rowta in Udalguri district, about 100 km north of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
"The situation is tense with the violence spreading to new areas in the district even as five more bodies were recovered, all of them shot at with poisoned tipped arrows and hit with sharp crude implements," another senior police official said requesting not to be named.
More than 50 people were wounded, some of them with bullet injuries.
"More than 200 houses were set ablaze in about six villages," the official said.
Thousands of villagers have fled their homes and now taking shelter in makeshift relief camps set up by the police.
"There are an estimated 4,000 people of various ethnic communities sheltered in camps. These people had fled fearing attacks or belonged to villages where miscreants had torched their homes," the official said.
The immediate provocation for the clashes was the attack on a group of Village Defence Party (VDP) volunteers early Friday by armed miscreants.
"The VDP members belonged to the tribal Bodo community and was attacked by members of a religious minority group and that sparked off the clashes," the official said.
In August, the area witnessed similar clashes between two communities in which about 10 people were killed and several injured.
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