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Silchar Oct. 3: The Indigenous People’s Forum (IPF) has withdrawn a marathon bandh in Haflong and its adjoining areas with effect from 1pm today.
The indefinite bandh was called last Thursday by the Forum, an apex body of the minority ethnic communities of Hmars, Jeme Nagas and Kukis, to press for its demand for bifurcation of the Dima Hasao into two separate districts, including one for the Dimasas.
A senior official of the district administration today said the Forum’s boss, Atang Lienthang, had responded positively to feelers from the district authorities for terminating the bandh considering the distress and difficulties of the people of the district.
He said a delegation of the Forum would soon go to Dispur to meet M. Ariz Mohammed, the commissioner of the hill areas and Barak districts, for talks on its demand for bifurcation of Dima Hasao. The talks will also focus on their opposition to any peace treaty with two factions of the pro-ceasefire DHD.
The date of this meeting, however, is yet to be announced.
On Monday, curfew was relaxed for four hours to allow the people of the town and its vicinity to buy essentials. Shopping was marred in Haflong and another town of Harangajao by sporadic incidents of violence.
Curfew was again relaxed for five hours today between 10am and 3pm.
There was a scramble among the people of the town to buy cereals and vegetables.
On Monday, police fired a few rounds of rubber bullets in the air to disperse bandh supporters.
“The town looks besieged with people preferring to stay indoors. The army, called out in Haflong on Friday in the wake of the flare-up in Haflong, again staged a flag march again,” Patanjali Thaosen, a teacher in Haflong, said.
Another company of the CRPF and a few platoons of the army arrived in Haflong yesterday to beef up security in Dima Hasao district.
Assam police headquarters in Guwahati last night rushed two senior police officials ADG (law and order) A.P. Routh and IGP (law and order) L.R. Bishnoi to Haflong to review law and order in the district.
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