Shillong: A high alert has been sounded
in Meghalaya’s East Garo Hills district following the recovery
of three bodies in neighbouring Goalpara district of Assam,
believed to be victims of recent ethnic clashes, a senior
official said.
East Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Pravin Bakshi said
today with the situation turning tense following the recovery
of the three corpses, belonging to one of the communities, the
authorities have decided to keep the paramilitary forces in
the strife-torn Meghalaya-Assam border pockets of the district
for some more time with vigil stepped up in certain areas.
Ever since the ethnic flare-up between the Rabha and
Garo communities in the area on January one, the situation was
gradually getting back to normal since mid-January, officials
said.
The three decomposed bodies were believed to be of
members of a relief team missing during the clashes and dug
out from a grave in the area on January 27, the sources in
Goalpara said. Four persons were missing after an attack on a
relief party during the clashes. While bodies of three,
belonging to one of the two local communities, were found,
another still remained untraced.
Some 2,500 people displaced in the ten-day clashes are
still sheltered in ten relief camps in the district.
About 8,000 Rabha people of Meghalaya who fled to
Assam during the clashes are likely to be repatriated to new
relief camps to be set up in Meghalaya, till their
rehabilitation.
The ethnic violence claimed 12 lives so far.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, January 29, 2011, 16:08