Guwahati: Altogether 11 persons were killed, ten in a bizarre incident of electrocution and one in police firing on Monday at Pengeri, a small township in Tinsukia district bordering Arunachal Pradesh, with the district administration calling in the Army to carry out a flag-march after curfew was imposed in the area.
Trouble began when a crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 people had gathered outside Pengeri police station around 10 AM demanding handing over of five persons the police had earlier arrested in connection with the brutal murder of a man and his daughter-in-law in a nearby tea estate on Wednesday.
While the police asked the crowd to disperse, they instead stormed into the police station and ransacked it, prompting the police to open fire.
While one person was killed in police firing, an overhead live electric wire snapped probably when one bullet hit it, with the live wire electrocuting at least 20 persons, causing death to as many as 10 of them. Confirming this, Tinsukia deputy commissioner Puru Gupta told The Indian Express over the telephone that while 11 – including one hit by a bullet – were killed, 19 more were admitted to the civil hospital in Tinsukia.
Pengeri is about 40 kms east of Tinsukia headquarters. “The people were so angry over the way the woman and her father-in-law were killed, that they were simply not satisfied with the arrest of five of the culprits who were allegedly involved in the crime. While the police had forwarded the five accused to the court, the people wanted them to be handed over to the public and hanged,” the deputy commissioner said. It was on Wednesday that three persons including a woman were kidnapped from No 2 Nalani village near Duramara tea estate under Pengeri police station. While the three – a man, his wife and his father – were kidnapped on Wednesday, the man managed to escape the next morning.
On Friday, the mutilated bodies of Chuni Gorh and his daughter-in-law Lakshmi Gorh were recovered from a nearby jungle. While the situation had remained tense since the recovery of the brutally murdered persons on Friday, leading to protests in the past two days, the police had managed to arrest five of the alleged culprits on Saturday evening.
The villagers, belonging to Duwarmara, Tara, Philobari, Pengeri and other tea estates, on Monday morning turned up in large numbers outside the police statin, shouting slogans and demanding handing over of the five accused. Meanwhile chief minister Tarun Gogoi has ordered judicial inquiry in to Pengeri incident. He also appealed to the people to exercise restraint and maintain peace and tranquility, and asked the district authorities to ensure maintenance of law and order.