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4 die as police open fire to disperse arsonist-mob in Assam town

— Photo: PTI

Calm after the storm: Footwear left scattered on the road after the police opened fire on a mob at Bengtol in Chirang on Thursday.

Guwahati: Four persons including a woman were killed and several others injured when the police opened fire to disperse a violent and arsonist-mob at Bengtol in lower Assam’s Chirang district under the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) on Thursday, Subhas Das, Principal Secretary, Home, said.

The crowd had torched government offices and a camp of surrendered cadres of the erstwhile Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), and prevented security personnel from dismantling an “illegal” camp set up by cadres of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), he told The Hindu over telephone.

On Wednesday, suspected militants of Black Widow (Dima Halm Daogah-Jewel faction) abducted five persons, including three officials of a private construction firm engaged in the East West Corridor project of the National Highway Authority of India in North Cachar Hills district.

On the incident at Bengtol, Mr. Das said the mob attacked the security personnel who tried to stop the arson. It also prevented the personnel, who had gone there to dismantle the camp “illegally set up” by the NDFB and shift 11 of its cadres to a designated camp at Serfanguri in Kokrajhar district. As lathicharge failed to disperse the stone-throwing crowd, the police opened fire to control the situation.

Under an existing agreement between the Centre and the NDFB, its cadres are required to confine themselves to the three designated camps set up by the State government at Serfanguri, Bagsa and Udalguri. But, Mr. Das said, only 600 cadres were in the camps and about 1,000 others were staying outside. The State government now planned to bring all of them to the designated camps.

The BTC is run by the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) — a political party floated by leaders of the erstwhile BLT.

The BPF is also a partner in the Congress-led coalition. While the BLT gave up insurgency and the statehood demand in lieu of creation of the BTC under the amended provisions of VI Schedule, the NDFB has been clamouring for a “sovereign Boroland.”

In N.C. Hills, suspected militants abducted a project manager, a deputy project manager and an engineer, their driver and a personal security officer when they were travelling from their office at Lumding in Nagaon district to the project site in the Langting area, Mr. Das said.

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