death toll hits 43 after attacks on Muslims in Assam Indian police discovered five more bodies of women and children
The bodies were found as authorities continued their search of two districts in the remote tea-growing state where masked gunmen last week shot dead Muslim villagers, including babies, as they slept.
Police have accused tribal Bodo rebels of killing the Muslims, whose migrant community has been locked for years in land disputes with the indigenous group in the state, which borders Bhutan and Bangladesh.
Local media have reported that Bodos attacked the Muslims as punishment for failing to vote for their candidate last month in the country's mammoth staggered election, which is drawing to a close.
The Assam chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, told reporters from the worst-hit Narayanguri village: "So far the death toll is put at 43. The killings were indeed barbaric, with even a five-month-old baby not spared. It is unfortunate that bodies are still being recovered and we have reports that 11 more people are missing."
A police spokesman travelling with Gogoi said the bodies of three children and two women were the latest found in the district of Baksa, about 130 miles west of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
The death toll has climbed from at least 32 on Sunday after a series of bodies were discovered in recent days, while several people wounded in the carnage on 1-2 May have also died in hospital.
Gogoi said 15 children, aged between eight months and 14 years, had been left orphaned by the bloodshed and were being sent to a charity-run home in Guwahati.
Villagers cried as they recalled their ordeals, while others pleaded with officials travelling with the chief minister to help shift them to hospital for treatment.
"I saw my mother and father dying in front of me. I managed to save myself hiding under the bed as masked gunmen put bullets in my parents," 14-year-old Habiba Nessa told AFP.
Security forces are searching for the Bodo guerrillas blamed for the violence, which has forced several thousand people to flee their homes in fear, officials have said.
The violence came during the final stretch of the general election, which has seen religious and ethnic tensions flare and which the Hindu nationalist hardliner Narendra Modi and his opposition party are expected to win
According to the 2001 census, there were 17,296,455 Hindus, 8,240,611 Muslims, 986,589 Christians, 22,519 Sikhs, 31,029 Buddhists, 20,957 Jains and 29,999 belonging to other religious communities.[102] The latter includes Animism (Khamti, Phake, Aiton etc. communities).
Muslims constitute the second largest religious group in Assam with 8,240,611 Muslims (2001).[102]
In the 16th century, an Islamic saint Ajan Fakir Shah Miran and also known as Ghiyasuddin Auliya came from Baghdad to Assam to preach Islam in the area. The mosque constructed by him is known as the Pao Mecca mosque. Poa Mecca literally means one-fourth of Mecca, as the foundation of the mosque is believed to have been laid upon a handful of earth brought from Mecca. The Poa-Mecca mosque was partially destroyed by a strong earthquake that occurred in 1897 and the dargah on the 750 ft (229 m). Ghiyasuddin Auliya Ajan Fakir was buried on the hills of Gaurachol and hence the tomb on the hill is related to him, are considered sacrosanct not only by the Muslims but by people of other faiths as well.[109] Panchpeer Dargaha, in the Dhubri District is a Mazar Sharif of five Sufi Saints who accompanied Raja Ram Singh during his time of invasion to Assam. Panbari Masjid, also historically called the Rangamati Masjid, is a famous mosque near Panbari, about 25 km east from Dhubri town, and is considered to be the oldest mosque of Assam
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/india-elections-death-toll-43-attacks-muslims-assam
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/442497
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assam
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