Two more killed as Assam-Meghalaya border tense
By IANSMonday, January 10, 2011
SHILLONG - Two more people were killed and 12 injured in fresh violence in riot-hit areas of Meghalaya-Assam border, officials said Monday.
Several houses and trucks carrying supplies to the riot-hit areas in Meghalaya were also torched Sunday night at Paikan area on the tense inter-state border.
The central government has rushed in union Joint Secretary Home Affairs in-charge Shambu Singh to the areas to take stock of the situation.
The army has been deployed on the inter-state border.
“The (Meghalaya-Assam) border is still tense in view of Sunday’s night fresh violence incidents on the other side of the border (Assam),” Meghalaya Home Minister H.D.R. Lyngdoh told IANS.
He, however, maintained that the situation inside Meghalaya’s Resubelpara is limping back to normalcy.
The number of deaths have risen to 10 and as many as 300 houses on both sides of the two states have been torched, while nearly 40,000 people have been displaced in ethnic clashes between Garos and Rabhas that entered the tenth day.
Meanwhile, the Border Security Force Sunday arrested four Rabha Security Force (RSF) rebels from the riot-hit areas in Meghalaya’s Balmuri village.
A 12 bore rifle, a countrymade pistol, khukris, daggers, fire crackers, bow and arrows, mobile phones, crude bombs and 300 ml of kerosene has been recovered from their possession.
The four rebels - Kasiram Rabha, Gangadhar Rabha, Dhanonjoy Rabha and Aniraj Rabha - were residents of Agia village in Assam and had planned arson attacks targetting Garo villages in Meghalaya, police said.
