Assam, Nagaland CMs to meet MoS Home, curfew extended in violence hit areas

The curfew in Assam has been extended for a few more hours, even as the two Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland are scheduled to meet Minister of state for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju later today. The army is currently conducting a flag march in the area, which have seen deadly clashes along the border between the two states. Concerned over the unabated violence, Home Minister Rajnath Singh telephoned Assam CM Tarun Gogoi and his Nagaland counterpart R Zelian, and asked them to defuse tension along the borders of the two states. [caption id=“attachment_1674301” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] The home minister’s action came hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought a report on the situation. Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju will travel to Guwahati to take stock of the situation and talk to both of them. Zelian will be in the Assam capital on Thursday to attend a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states. The meeting also comes as a besieged Gogoi has accused the centre of not doing enough to stop the violence. He has alleged inaction by the CRPF personnel who were deployed to prevent attacks from across the state’s border, a charge that has already been denied by Rijiju. The Home Ministry has already sent around 1,000 paramilitary personnel to be deployed along the Assam-Nagaland border to defuse the situation. Nine people have been killed and 10,000 people rendered homeless following the first outbreak of violence on 12 August. Three persons were killed and six injured in police firing in Golaghat town on Wednesday, when a mob tried to set fire to the Deputy Commissioner’s office and a police station and targeted a hospital, after which indefinite curfew was clamped there. Chief Minister Gogoi was on Sunday heckled by some villagers when he had visited violence-hit Uriamghat. With inputs from agencies