ULFA strikes again, guns down 11 Bihar labourers

The killings came less than 24 hours after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi claimed an improvement in the situation and coincided with the visit of Union Minister of state for Home Swami Chinmayanand and North-East Affairs Minister C P Thakur.

(According to a PTI report from Guwahati, Thakur, after holding a meeting with Gogoi and Chinmayanand in Guwahati, said that the violence was ‘‘part of a big game’’ played by Bangladesh and Pakistan to destabilise India.

PTI also quoted sources as saying that three more Biharis were thrown into the Brahmaputra at Dhola with their hands tied.)

Clearly, what started as local resentment over the prospect of low-level jobs going to people from other states is now being used to stoke the fires of a new anti-outsider movement in the state.

The first strike in a brick kiln near the Mahakali tea estate occurred at 8:30 am leaving eight dead, three others were killed in the second incident—both sites are less than 15 km from here.

The state government suspended Tinsukia SP Satyen Gogoi and transferred Deputy Commissioner Bhupendra Kumar Das for their ‘‘failure’’ to control the situation. Apurba Jiwan Baruah and Sanjoy Lohia have taken over as the SP and DC respectively. ‘‘I heard gunshots in huts meant for labourers. I saw two youths with guns who fled in two bicycles,’’ said Banarasi Mahato, whose son Lola Mahato, hardly 15, was also killed.

The eight killed also included a truck driver and a cart-puller working in the kiln. Banarsi Mahato’s second son, Munna, escaped as he hid barely 20 m away.

‘‘The two persons asked our names and from where we hailed, and then opened fire,’’ said Nand Kumar, who survived with minor injuries.

This kiln, owned by Tinsukia businessman Dharamchand Agarwala and district AGP president Nabajyoti Bora, had three weeks ago brought 150 labourers from Chapra and Muzaffarpur districts of Bihar. The other incident, believed to be the handiwork of the same militants, took place at Khariyagaon village. All three killed were labourers from Bihar. In Kakopathar, another Bihari was killed this morning. Curfew, imposed in Tinsukia on Wednesday, continued today. Labourers have now been moved to a market-shed close to Bordubi police station. ‘‘I wonder how authorities propose to provide security to labourers, the kilns being mostly located in remote areas without any road link,’’ said Bora, whose kiln has about 8 lakh raw bricks ready for firing.