Silchar/Dibrugarh, Feb. 9: Another Kakopathar erupted on the southern fringes of Assam after a Government Railway Police sub-inspector shot dead a trader during an eviction campaign last night.

Badarpur town in Cachar district was shut for eight hours today after nightlong street protests that almost got out of hand. The situation was much the same in Kakopathar, under Tinsukia district, where a youth picked up by the army last weekend died in custody.

Naked anger against the army over the contentious circumstances in which Ajit Mahanta died threatened to spiral out of control, with some people even warning of a nude protest by women, like the one against the Assam Rifles in Manipur in 2004.

The victim in the Badarpur incident, which came three days after Ajit’s death ? was identified as Kartik Banik. GRP sub-inspector N.R. Laskar is accused of shooting dead Banik without provocation.

“The officer and his team had an altercation with some traders whom they were trying to evict from Badarpur railway junction. Banik was nowhere on the scene. He was just passing by when the official whisked out his service revolver and fired at the trader,” a source said over phone from the south Assam town.

Hit on the chest, Banik died on the spot.

Spurred into action by the public uproar that followed the incident, the police today arrested Laskar from a relative’s house in Silchar. Mobs had ransacked the GRP barracks in Badarpur and some railway offices throughout the night. However, nobody was injured.

Badarpur police described the situation in the town as tense but under control. A senior officer said Laskar’s arrest was expected to restore a semblance of normality.

In Kakopathar, over 10,000 people gathered at Hunjan Tinali to perform tiloni ? an Assamese ritual on the third day after a person’s death ? for Ajit. The villagers, who have been demanding punishment for the army personnel who had picked up the farmer, also adopted a resolution to stage a naked protest if the soldiers were let off without adequate penalties.

“Women will strip naked in Kakopathar town if immediate action is not taken against the guilty army personnel,” the resolution said.

A group of 12 Manipuri women had shocked the nation by protesting against army excesses in the nude in front of the Kangla Fort in Imphal, which was then the Assam Rifles headquarters, after the custody death of a woman named Thangjam Manorama.

The threat by women from Kakopathar to re-enact the infamous Kangla episode came despite efforts by the army to placate the villagers. The army yesterday said it would monetarily compensate Ajit’s family and “adopt” his two minor sons.

Both the army and the state government are conducting separate inquiries into the circumstances leading to Ajit’s death, but the protesters want the personnel involved in the incident to be publicly tried and punished.

The army had picked up Ajit for allegedly working as an “Ulfa linkman”. The official version is that he died after a fall while trying to escape.