The Hindu : Front Page : Adivasis, locals clash in Guwahati

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Sunday, Nov 25, 2007
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Adivasis, locals clash in Guwahati

Special Correspondent

Rallyists go on the rampage, inviting retaliation from residents

— Photo: PTI

BARBARIC: A local resident drags a woman, member of the Assam Tea Tribe Students Association at Beltola Survey, in Guwahati on Saturday.

Guwahati: One person was killed and about 250 were injured, 10 critically, when violent clashes broke out between participants of a rally taken out by the All-Adivasi Students’ Association, Assam (AASAA) and local residents of the city on Saturday afternoon.

(Unofficial reports said five Adivasis were killed in the incidents).

Indefinite curfew has been clamped over the entire road from Dispur Last Gate to Beltola Chariali following the violence.

The State government has sounded a red alert and directed all Deputy Commissioners to beef up security measures to prevent backlashes.

The Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, ordered a one-man probe to be headed by Additional Chief secretary P.P. Verma to inquire into the incidents.

The rally was taken out by the Adivasi student body to press for inclusion of Santal Adivasis and the tea tribes in the list of Scheduled Tribes(ST).

Adivasis, including tea tribe communities, are not Scheduled Tribes in Assam and they have been demanding such status for a long time.

Principal Secretary Home Subhas Das told The Hindu that the clashes occurred as the rallyists, numbering about 3,000 to 4,000, broke security cordons and went on the rampage vandalising shops and business establishments and damaging vehicles along the stretch from Beltola Chariali to Beltola Survey area. When police lathi-charged and dispersed them, irate local residents attacked the fleeing rallyists.

Mr. Das said the police had tried to prevent the rallyists from coming out of their meeting venue at Dakhingaon, Beltola but a large number of them sneaked out in small groups and marched towards the capital complex. He said there was no permission to hold the rally.

— Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

CLASHES IN GUWAHATI: Adivasis who took out a rally in Guwahati on Saturday, demanding Scheduled Tribe status, were set upon by locals after they went on the rampage. One person was killed and 250 were injured in the clashes.

Of the injured, 210 were admitted in the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital and 30 in the Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital.

Beltola presented a gory sight with bleeding Adivasis lying unconscious at several locations along the road.

City buses and private vehicles with window panes broken were stranded on the road, strewn with broken glass.

In one location seven critically injured were lying unattended for a long time. Eyewitnesses said that local residents attacked the rallyists with rods and sticks and used heavy stones.

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