Washington:
A US-based organisation of Indian Muslims has condemned the recent violence in Assam in which at least 32 people were killed and demanded that additional paramilitary forces be deployed in the strife-torn area.
Indian American Muslim Council claimed that the violence by NDFB(S) militants in two communally-sensitive districts of the state was directly related to the general election where divisive and hateful rhetoric demonising Assamese Muslims as "illegal immigrants" has been used to incite violence and advance a sectarian agenda.
"The mass killing of Assamese Muslims is the bitter harvest of the usual divisive politics espoused by Hindutva supremacists," said Ahsan Khan, president of IAMC.
"It represents a brutal attempt to alter the electoral demographics of Assam, through violence, intimidation and mass displacement," he said in a statement issued yesterday.
The IAMC called for the seizure of all illegal arms and ammunition from the Bodo areas as a necessary step towards ending the ethnic conflict.
It also demanded an immediate enquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge into the killings as well as the suspension of police personnel accused of complicit in the violence.