India’s Assam state deployed thousands of paramilitary troops yesterday to quell clashes between Muslim migrants and tribal groups that have left more than 30 people dead.
More than 60,000 people have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence that broke out Friday and swiftly spread through three districts of the northeastern state.
A senior Assam police official said an additional 2,100 paramilitary personnel were being sent to the affected areas, where curfews with shoot-on-sight orders have already been imposed.
PHOTO: AP
SPEARS
The clashes, between members of the Bodo tribal group and Muslim settlers originally from Bangladesh, have witnessed raids on numerous villages by groups armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows, spears and machetes.
“They set fire to a large a number of homes in my village,” said Dipali Basumatary, who had taken shelter with her two children in a government-run relief camp.
At least half the fatalities so far have been people killed in police firing.
Although there have been tensions between indigenous and immigrant communities in Assam, violence on such a scale is extremely rare.
Some state officials accused local separatist groups of fueling the unrest.
Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the root cause was a program of “ethnic cleansing” implemented by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a rebel group fighting for an independent tribal homeland.
‘POGROM’
“They want to drive out all non-Bodos from the area ... it’s a systematic pogrom,” Sarma said.
The NDFB, which is a largely Christian outfit, entered into a ceasefire with the Indian government in 2005, but has never renounced its independence struggle.
“We are investigating reports of the involvement of the NDFB in the clashes and, if proved, we shall be forced to call off the ceasefire,” said Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
“Locals are threatened by the growing Muslim population, which is above 40 percent,” said Noni Gopal Mahanta, of the Peace and Conflict Studies Center at Gauhati University.
“There has been simmering tension for quite sometime and now the situation is grim,” Mahanta said.
More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of