The Centre has said that the killing of 10 people along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border was a fall-out of a localised dispute over land but admitted that police presence was thin in the remote area.
Joint Secretary (North-East) in the Home Ministry, Shambhu Singh, said there has been sporadic localised violence in the area in the past but never on a scale as witnessed on Wednesday when 10 CPI(ML) supporters were killed and 12 others injured by unidentified persons in Assam’s Sonitpur district.
“The incident yesterday was different. It involved local people. Police presence is not big there as the area is large,” he told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday after receiving a report from Assam government on the incident.
Singh said the Assam government has conveyed that it was a local incident involving a land dispute and the killings had taken place in a reserved forest over encroachment by people from both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
People of either state claim the land for themselves, he said. Singh said that no additional deployment of central paramilitary forces had been made in Assam as the state has adequate security personnel.
There are around 17,000 central paramilitary personnel currently deployed in Assam.
The incident on Wednesday involved a gang from Arunachal Pradesh which attacked people of Assam in the Behali reserved forest in Sonitpur district, which borders Arunachal Pradesh.