Nearly 25 years ago, I reported on the killing fields of Nellie in central Assam, near my grandparental home of Nogaon, where over 1,500 Bengali-speaking settlers were butchered during an ill-fated state assembly election that was bitterly opposed by the student-led agitation against “illegal migrants”. Many of us had hoped, at the time, that such brutalities would not cease in time. That has not happened. Whether it was in the Bodo-dominated areas or the fall-out of Ayodhya in Morigaon, near Nogaon, in 1992; the killings of Bihari labourers in 2003 by the banned Ulfa or the mayhem in the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Hill district last year, which saw scores killed and thousands displaced; it has been an endless cycle of violence. We are not even touching upon the recent blasts in Guwahati and elsewhere.

Now come the Ulfa killings of the vulnerable in Tinsukia, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh districts, in remote villages and island communities inhabited by Hindi speakers, especially settlers from Bihar. But even the phrase ‘Bihari settlers’ is a misnomer: for generations, many of them have known no other home but Assam. There are other residents of Assam too, Bodo and Mishing tribals, Bengali and Assamese speakers. They study, work and live in Assam. They rear cattle and transport milk to towns; their vegetable and fruit produce fill the markets of the Brahmaputra Valley.

So why were they targeted? Because they are vulnerable and therefore easy targets. No Z-category security for them, no police outposts or patrols, no roads, no communications. Ulfa’s message is unambiguous: they can kill the weak at will. It is also an assertion of a strategy that is simple and brutal: this is not aimed at the settlers, but at the state government and New Delhi. Ulfa activities surge in the days before Republic Day and Independence Day.

... contd.