M A I N   N E W S

Adivasis kill youth during Assam bandh
Bijay Sankar Bora
Tribune News Service

Guwahati, November 26
Adivasi tribal miscreants stabbed to death a teenager and set ablaze at least two vehicles even as sporadic incidents of violence marked the first day of the 36-hour Assam bandh called by the All-Adivasi Students Association of Assam today.

According to official sources, the miscreants stabbed to death Santosh Prasad (17) and injured two others besides setting ablaze their vehicle at Karigaon in Kokrajhar district this morning.

The bandh hit life in Kokrajhar district where financial institutions, government offices and educational institutions remained closed during the day.

The bandh, however, failed to have much impact in the state’s capital where a few financial institutions and private educational institutions were not functioning. The bandh has partial impact in the tea belt in eastern Assam.

The police said the Adivasis set ablaze a Santro car at Lalmati in Nagoan district, while there were sporadic incidences of violence in some pockets of Nagaon and Mangaldoi districts.

Tea estate labourer Sadananda Tantabai was shot dead by the Army at Disangpani under the Kakotibari police station in Sivasagar district in the wee hours. The Army claimed that a group of tea estate workers tried to attack its personnel and in retaliatory fire a tea estate worker was killed.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today announced the government’s decision to constitute a judicial inquiry into Saturday’s violence by a retired high court judge. He also announced an ex gratia of Rs 1 lakh to the Adivasi woman who was stripped in Guwahati on Saturday.

The police today arrested three persons from the Beltola area of the city for stripping the Adivasi woman on the basis of video footage.

Meanwhile, political leaders of Jharkhand have reached Assam in the aftermath of Saturday’s clashes. So far three prominent Jharkhand politicians, Arjun Munda, Shibu Soren and Babulal Marandi, have come to the state along with their aides to take stock of the situation.

“This is the most inhuman attack on any human I have ever seen in my life,” said former union coal minister Shibu Soren while addressing mediapersons here, while former Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda has termed the ‘barbaric attack’ a handiwork of the Congress.

First Chief Minister of Jharkhand Babulal Marandi, who came to the state today, said: “This is a scar on the nation and civil society of Assam will have to live with the scar. Never ever any Adivasi woman was stripped on the street,” he said.