More forces for Assam

By Barun Das Gupta

NEW DELHI, DEC. 8. A high-level meeting, chaired by the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, reviewed the law and order situation in Assam following the killing of 28 non-Assamese in the State on Thursday. It was decided to send 27 additional companies of paramilitary forces to the State to launch operations against insurgent groups like the ULFA. At present there are 128 companies in the State.

The 90-minute meeting was attended by the Assam Chief Minister, Mr. P.K. Mahanta, the Governor, Lt. Gen S.K. Sinha, the Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, and the Army Chief, Gen S. Padmanabhan.

Massacre toll rises to 28

The death toll in yesterday's massacre of non-Assamese people by ULFA militants in Tinsukia district's Sonapura village has risen to 28.

According to reports reaching here, the assailants stopped the trucks in which the victims were coming from a market at Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Biharis, the Nepalis, the Bengali Hindus and Muslims were separated in groups and the Biharis were asked to line up facing the trucks and then shot.

Intriguingly, some of those who managed to escape later reported that the assailants spoke in broken Assamese with an Urdu accent and between themselves they spoke in Urdu.

A combing operation has been launched in the area jointly by the Army and the police to nab the extremists. The Additional DGP (Ops), Mr. G. M. Srivastava, is conducting the operation.

Meanwhile, in an apparently retaliatory attack, Mr. Deepak Choudhury, brother of ULFA's self-styled `foreign secretary', Mr. Sasha Choudhury, was gunned down by unknown assailants at Helchagaon village in Nalbari district early this morning.

The ULFA leader, it may be recalled, was released on bail from Guwahati jail in 1996.

He was received at the jail gate by heavily armed ULFA men who immediately whisked him away to their camp reportedly in Bhutan.

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