Indian PM firm on Assam violence

By PP Singh
BBC correspondent in Guwahati

The family of a Bihari settler killed in the violence

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has asked the chief minister of the Indian state of Assam to deal firmly with violence in the state.

Twenty six people have been killed in attacks in recent days against Hindi speaking people in Assam, police say.

Indian army troops have been called out in four affected districts of the north-eastern state, officials say.

Tensions between Assamese and Hindi speaking people has been fuelled by disputes over job allocations.

The attacks have been mainly directed at the settlers from the northern Bihar state.

Army deployed

A senior Assam official said nearly 500 members of the security forces have been sent to the troubled Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts, and another 700 are expected to arrive soon.

The official said that the army had been called out in the Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Nagaon and Sonitpur districts.

More than 350 people have been arrested across the state to check the escalating violence, but there are reports of intimidation and burning of houses.

Residents of Assam's capital city of Guwahati took part in a procession in protest against the killings. They called for friendship between the Assamese and Bihari people.

Some of the city's cobblers, washermen and newspaper vendors, who mostly hail from Bihar, appear to have left the city.

But Indian railway officials have denied reports that large numbers of Bihari settlers have begun moving out of the city.

They said there were bookings available for most trains departing from Assam.

A former chief minister of the state has demanded a judicial probe into the violence.

Mr Prafulla Kumar Mahanta also called on Delhi to initiate a policy favouring reserving government jobs for locals in every Indian state.

Train passengers from Assam were attacked in Bihar last week by Biharis protesting at alleged job discrimination in Assam.

The Bihar mobs were angry that youths in Assam had physically prevented candidates from Bihar from taking recruitment interviews for jobs at the state-run railways.

Assamese people say the jobs should be reserved for them.