THE migrants are now leaving the brick kilns of Tinsukia. What’s left behind is fear. “We do not want to stay here any longer. There is news of killing from all over. We are scared. Our owners are also worried,” says Shankar Rai, a 60-year-old labourer who had come from his village in Gopalganj in Bihar.

His four sons are ready to leave as well. Nearly 155 labourers from a brick kiln sit huddled in a primary school on the National Highway, just waiting to catch the next train out of Assam.

There are more than 3,000 workers from Bihar in the 20-odd brick kilns in Tinsukia. “They were soft targets because they work in areas that are remote,” says RN Mathur, who took over as the Assam Police DG on January 1.

But the fear is no longer limited to the kilns and the river islands. “When the ULFA wants to strike, the easiest target is the ordinary, innocent, helpless migrant from Bihar, be it in the busy Fancy Bazaar locality of Guwahati or the remote chapori on the Brahmaputra in Tinsukia,” says Khagen Sharma, IGP (Special Branch) in the Assam Police.

IT’S an old story. Every time Assam gets into election mode, political parties discreetly woo the ULFA. And once an election is over, predictably, the parties (Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Congress especially) turn around and accuse each other of using the ULFA to come to power. This, interspersed with a now-on-now-off peace process.

... contd.