Bodos slaughter 13 more in N-E

“We had been served with `tax’ notices some weeks back, and July 25 was the deadline. We approached the police, and they assured us full security. But that assurance turned out to be a total lie. They want us to go.” said Jiten Sarkar, one of the survivors, who wonders why he was spared when three others were gunned down before his own eyes.

And like the August 11 incident at Lahapara and Hatimara in adjoining Kamrup district, the victims in these two villages in Nalbari district are also all Bengali Hindus who had migrated here during the Bagladesh Liberation War in 1971.

The killers are suspected to have slipped out across the dense jungles into Bhutan, which is only about five kms from here. While the first police party reached the spot one hour later, all it found was people still trying to find out how many of their family members had actually died.

Why the Bodo militants are suddenly after the Bengali Hindus is not immediately known. But, considering the police guess-work that the attackers were members of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) – till recently known as the Bodo Security Force (BDSF), it might have some links to the creation of the Bengali Tiger Force (BTF), which is believed to be close to the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (BLT).

Going by the past record of killings by the Bodo militants, the intelligence agencies on their part tend to describe this as part of a larger design of the Bodos to carry out an ethnic cleansing, of which the Bengali-speaking migrant Muslims as well as the century-old Advivasi settlers have been major sufferers.

Thousands of Adivasis who were attacked by the Bodo militants in May last year, are still living in relief camps.