Time to get tough with rioters, Centre tells Assam govt

Upset with the Assam government for not taking decisive action against the rioters to put a stop to the violence, the Centre warned it about the serious implications such an approach can have in the near future.

The Union home secretary RK Singh spoke to Assam chief secretary Naba Kumar Das and Assam director general of police JN Chaudhary, and asked them to take tough measures to ensure the violence is not repeated.

The Assam government has been specifically asked to ban all kinds of bandh calls as most of the recent bandhs in Assam have led to violence and clashes.The Union home ministry is also peeved with Assam for not making any preventive arrests of big ring leaders of the warring communities and wants the state government to take tough action without granting favours to anybody. “We now know that there was a method behind the madness. The violence was well planned and organised,” sources told DNA. Keeping Assam on priority, Sushil Kumar Shinde was expected to speak with chief minister Tarun Gogoi later on Tuesday evening. In the Centre’s assessment, Assam’s ethnic clashes can put the northeast region in a vicious spiral of violence and can also lead to flare ups in other regions.