GUWAHATI, August 22 (Agencies): The Assam government claimed ‘some people’ were on their way back to south India after the recent mass exodus from there.
“Some among those (travelling by the special trains to Bangalore) were people who had fled earlier. It’s a mixture of regular passengers and others who had fled in a state of panic,” Assam’s home secretary GD Tripathi claimed. “I cannot say exactly how many of them have gone back as I don’t have any figures,” he said.
When asked, S Hajong, chief public relation officer of northeast frontier railway, said some people might have gone back. But he also could not give any figures.
Given the state of panic and the remoteness of the places most of these youth hail from, the number of people going back (if at all they have gone back) will surely be very few.
Some relief trains had carried the panic-stricken people from Bangalore to Guwahati till Monday.Tripathi said there was a public anxiety in parts of the state’s Hailakandi district on Tuesday when the bodies of three youth were brought from West Bengal. The youth died on Sunday after they were allegedly thrown off a relief train by the miscreants. The train was traveling to Guwahati from Bangalore. Four youth were killed and nine others injured in the incident.
Meanwhile, a seven-member central team visited some relief camps in Dhubri district on Tuesday. The team, comprising senior officers, will visit Kokrajhar, Chirang and Baksa districts on Wednesday. It will hold a meeting with senior state government officials in Guwahati on Thursday before flying back to Delhi.