Bokolia (Assam), Aug 13 :Panic-stricken Hindi-speakers have started fleeing Assam fearing more terror attacks as authorities herded hundreds of poor migrant workers in government shelters after 36 people were massacred.

"People are being killed like cats and dogs. I don't want to get killed here," fumed Sunil Chauhan, a Bihari migrant working in a brick kiln in eastern Assam as he boarded a train out of Assam.

There were four coordinated attacks beginning Wednesday in eastern Assam's Karbi Anglong district in which 28 Hindi-speakers were killed.

Most victims were from Bihar and three from Rajasthan. All of them had made Assam their home for decades and were engaged in petty business or were brick kiln workers, fishermen or simple daily wage earners.

Eight more civilians, mostly Assamese, were also killed in a series of explosions across the state linked to India's Independence Day celebrations Aug 15.

The police blamed the attacks on the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), both working in tandem in parts of Karbi Anglong district.

"Hindi-speaking people are scattered across the district, some of them residing in interior areas, making them soft targets for militants," Lajja Ram Bishnoi, deputy inspector general of police in Karbi Anglong district, told IANS over telephone.

Authorities have opened two relief camps to shelter migrant workers and have shifted more than 100 other families to safer areas.

"There are an estimated 200 Hindi-speaking people in two relief camps currently staying under police protection. We have also persuaded about 100 families to leave their homes and take shelter in safer areas," Karbi Anglong district police chief Anurag Thanka told IANS. "These steps were being taken as a precautionary measure."

But many of those who are settled in Assam for generations have decided to fight back.

"The attacks are perpetrated by terrorists. The general Assamese people are not against us and so we have no plans to leave the state," said Sailesh Jha, a 60-year-old sugarcane cultivator in Bokajan in Karbi Anglong district.

Jha's grandparents migrated to Assam a century back.

The attacks are reminiscent of the wave of killings by the ULFA in January targeting Hindi-speakers in which about 60 people were killed.

In 2000, ULFA militants killed at least 100 Hindi speaking people in Assam in a series of well-planned attacks after the rebel group vowed to free the state of all 'non-Assamese migrant workers'.

"The government should take stern steps to finish off the ULFA," said Bina Devi, who lost her husband in one of the massacres.

Like Devi, elderly Ram Chandra Mahato was equally angry.

"The militants should be killed without any mercy," shouted Mahato, who lost his son in one of the weekend attacks.

Fear still haunts Pritam Yadav and his teenaged nephew who work at a brick kiln.

"We are still worried with a general fear that the ULFA might strike again," Yadav said.

(IANS)

Comment