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Assam toll 71; Centre orders all-out offensive against Bodo militants

GUWAHATI: With the death toll mounting to 71 in Assam, a team of Union ministers, led by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and comprising Minister of State for Home Khiren Rijiju and Tribal Affairs Minister Joel Oram, rushed to Guwahati this afternoon to take stock of the situation.

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Bijay Sankar Bora

Tribune News Service

Guwahati, December 24

With the death toll mounting to 71 in Assam, a team of Union ministers, led by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and comprising Minister of State for Home Khiren Rijiju and Tribal Affairs Minister Joel Oram, rushed to Guwahati this afternoon to take stock of the situation.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said that both the state and the Centre wouldn’t be cowed down by the dastardly killing of Adivasi villagers by NDFB-S (National Democratic Front of Bodoland- Songbijit faction) militants and said that the police, paramilitary forces and the Army had launched a joint operation in the state to prevent escalation of the violence.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, the decision to launch an all-out offensive against NDFB militants jointly by police, paramilitary forces and Army was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by top officials of ministries of Home, Defence and paramilitary forces, sources said.

“It was an act of terror and we will deal with it accordingly... whatever action is required, we will take,” Rajnath Singh told reporters after the meeting.

In Guwahati, the Union Home Minister engaged in a prolonged security review meeting with the counter-insurgency Unified Command along the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, senior police, Army and paramilitary force officials in Brahmaputra state guest house immediately after his arrival.

Gogoi asked Rajnath Singh to institute a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), to which too the Home Minister agreed, the Chief Minister's Office said after the meeting.

The death toll mounted to 71 after unidentified miscreants hacked to death three Bodo villagers, including a woman – Raju Phadmari, Sabita Phadmari and Suren Daimary – this afternoon at Bihmari Bongaon under Biswanath Chariali police station in Sonitpur district.

With this, the death toll in Sonitpur district has gone up to 40 while the toll in Kokrajhar district remained at 25 and three in Chirang district.

Three more Adivasi protesters were killed in police firing in front of Dhekiajuli police station in Sonitpur district earlier today.

Curfew has been clamped in Kokrajhar and Udalguri districts of Bodoland Territorial Council areas and parts of Sonitpur district as a preventive measure. Reports about retaliatory attacks also came in from some areas. The government has announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for each of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for each of the injured.

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