11 die in clashes
over land in India’s northeast
By AP News Jul 22, 2012 7:30PM UTC
GAUHATI, India (AP) — India’s army moved in to stop armed clashes
over land between settlers and local villagers that have killed at least 11
people in India’s remote northeast over the past two days, police said Sunday.
Two days of battles between the ethnic Bodo community and Muslim
settlers also injured at least 10 people in Kokrajhar district, nearly 250
kilometers (155 miles) west of Gauhati, the state capital, said S.N. Singh, a
police inspector-general.
The clashes in Assam state began Friday after assailants killed
one person. As the violence spread to more than half a dozen villages in the
region, nearly 7,000 people fled their homes and took refuge in state-run
relief camps, Singh told The Associated Press on Sunday.
State authorities called in the army and imposed a night curfew in
the region on Saturday to quell violence. No fresh clashes have been reported
since Saturday night.
The soldiers have been patrolling the violence-hit region, Singh
said.
Animosity and accusations of land-stealing have long simmered
between Bodos and the thousands of mostly Bengali Muslim settlers, many of whom
came from the former East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh in 1971. The two
groups have clashed sporadically since 1990s and burned each other’s homes and
property, state officials said.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/86301/11-die-in-clashes-over-land-in-indias-northeast/
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