NARAYANGURI: From his hiding place in a cowshed, Sefaqul Islam watched as masked gunmen moved through his village, shot women and children dead with automatic rifles and tossed wounded survivors into the blazing remains of their homes.
The cattle herder's sister and seven-year-old nephew were among 41 Muslims killed by suspected tribal militants last week in Assam, the latest atrocity against people accused of being immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
"We will never go back to the village," said Islam, as he and dozens of Narayanguri's traumatised inhabitants erected bamboo-framed tents on the opposite bank of the Beki river.
Police and local residents said three separate attacks were carried out by militants from the ethnic Bodo community as punishment for Muslims who failed to support their local candidate in the election, which is still going on across India.
The worst outbreak of communal violence in the northeastern region since 2012 has compounded fears among Muslims living along the India-Bangladesh border who feel they are being singled out by the man widely expected to be India's next prime minister - Narendra Modi.
The Hindu nationalist candidate, campaigning mainly on a ticket of economic growth, has ratcheted up rhetoric against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, saying they should have their "bags packed" ready to be sent home should he win.
"The infiltrators have to go, go and go," Modi said on Wednesday in West Bengal, which also borders Bangladesh.
A few miles from Narayanguri, in an area prone to religious violence, Modi made a similar speech a few days before the massacres, warning that Bangladeshis were taking over the state.
While there is no evidence Modi's words had any bearing on the latest bloodshed in a long-running conflict, his rivals say the speeches, which continued after the attacks, risk alienating many in India's Muslim minority of 150 million people.
The prospect of an Indian prime minister forcing Muslims of Bangladeshi origin to return home has also raised alarm bells in Dhaka, where the government said it would resist any such move.
MODI'S PARTY DEFENDS STANCE
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which opinion polls suggest will lead the next government after a staggered, five-week election that ends on Monday, denies stirring tensions in Assam and has firmly condemned the killings.
Party leaders say it has every right to address what it says is an issue of national security, because immigration is part of a bid by Bangladesh to expand its borders informally.
"This is a fight between ethnic people and suspected foreigners who have captured our land and our jobs," said Ranjit Kumar Das, a BJP legislator in Assam's state assembly who lives in Barpeta Road, the closest town to the massacre.
"(The violence) is the natural outcome," he said. "If there is no permanent solution it will happen again and again."
The BJP also accuses the Congress party, which rules in Assam but looks set to be toppled from power on a national level, of failing to prevent the violence despite warning signs that trouble was brewing after voting took place there.
For its part, Congress says Modi is playing a divisive and dangerous political game in Assam, and the row has thrust a local issue on to the national stage during an election.
Reaction to Modi's speeches on social media shows people are listening. Posts under the #deportbangladeshis tag were at the top of Twitter's trend list in India on Monday.
For most of his tireless, 10-month election campaign, Modi, 63, has focussed on his credentials as an efficient manager capable of ending the worst economic slowdown in decades.
But he has failed to shake off doubts that he and his party are prejudiced against Muslims and will favour the Hindu majority at their expense.
Those date back to the party's rise in the 1990s following a mob's destruction of a mosque. Modi has been accused of not doing enough to stop communal riots in 2002 in Gujarat, where he is chief minister, in which more than 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims.
Assam Attack toll rises to 43 after two more bodies recovered today
NARAYANGURI, MAY 10 (PTI): Two more bodies of minors were recovered in the Baksa district today, taking the toll in the mayhem allegedly unleashed by the NDFB(S) in BTAD areas to 43, a senior government official said. "Today, bodies of two minor boys were recovered from the Beki river. While one was 13 months old, another was seven years," Baksa Additional Deputy Commissioner Bhawani Prasad Sharma told PTI here. cTill date bodies of 36 people were recovered from the violence-hit Narayanguri, Khagrabari and Narsingbari villages of Baksa district and seven from Kokrajhar. Meanwhile, a National Commission for Minorities team today visited the affected areas of Baksa district.
NARAYANGURI, MAY 10 (PTI): Two more bodies of minors were recovered in the Baksa district today, taking the toll in the mayhem allegedly unleashed by the NDFB(S) in BTAD areas to 43, a senior government official said. "Today, bodies of two minor boys were recovered from the Beki river. While one was 13 months old, another was seven years," Baksa Additional Deputy Commissioner Bhawani Prasad Sharma told PTI here. cTill date bodies of 36 people were recovered from the violence-hit Narayanguri, Khagrabari and Narsingbari villages of Baksa district and seven from Kokrajhar. Meanwhile, a National Commission for Minorities team today visited the affected areas of Baksa district.
The team comprised of the Chairman and some members first interacted with the inmates of the relief camp and then went to the spot of the incident in Naryanguri and Khagrabari on the other side of the Beki river, Sharma said. Victims as well as the villagers on the east of Beki river during the interaction with the team alleged that Bodoland People's Front (BPF)-supported miscreants had attacked them as they did not vote for their candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.
