Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday visited the Balajan Tinali market in Kokrajhar district where 14 persons died in a terror attack on Friday.
Mr. Sonowal assessed the damage, in the presence of DGP Mukesh Sahay and other senior police officers. He stopped briefly before a salon where four persons were killed, and shops that were gutted. “Our government is committed to protecting the people. Terrorism will not be tolerated. The perpetrators of this attack will not be spared,” he told journalists.
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He said the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit) was involved in the attack. “From whatever information and evidence we have collected so far, it is evident that the NDFB(S) is behind the killings. But…we are still conducting search operations, and whoever is involved will be brought to book.”
Mr. Sahay said a DNA test would be conducted on the terrorist killed by the security forces during the attack. He was identified as Manjay Islari of the 16 battalion of the NDFB(S). “While we are reasonably sure of his identity, scientific evidence in accordance with the Evidence Act is not yet there. So we have to go for a DNA test.”
“The outfit has lost a lot of its cadre in the last one year. The police have effectively choked its supply,” he said. The only way for it to retaliate was to “pick on soft targets like people at a weekly market,” he said. While the police had been maintaining that the attack could have been meant to divert the attention of the security forces along the India-Bangladesh border, the DGP, for the first time, said the aim could be to “create an ethnic conflict”.
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