Centre asks Assam, Meghalaya to ensure security of relief camps

With ethnic violence along the Assam-Meghalaya border continuing unabated, the home ministry has asked both the states to ensure foolproof security to the 35,000 affected people taking shelter in 35 relief camps.

As many as 500 paramilitary force personnel have been sent to Meghalaya to guard 10 camps set up in the hill state to provide shelter to over 5,100 Garo and Rabha tribals.

Equal number of paramilitary personnel have also been sent to Assam to guard 25 relief camps where nearly 29,000 Rabha and Garo tribals are current living.

Additional 500 central personnel are likely to be sent in the next few days to Meghalaya if situation continues to be tense in the ethnic clash-hit border areas.

"Security in the relief camps have become the urgent necessity as a large number of people are taking shelter there," a home ministry official said.

Home ministry officials are also in touch with the officials of both Assam and Meghalaya governments and asked them to take urgent steps to bring back normalcy there.

The toll in the ethnic clashes between the Rabha tribals in Assam and Garo tribals in Meghalaya rose to seven today with the recovery of two more bodies in East Garo Hills district in Meghalaya and neighbouring Goalpara district in Assam.