Jorhat, July 19 : The Tinsukia district administration and police have started a police station-wise "sensitivity mapping" of Hindi-speaking people to provide them greater security after suspected Ulfa (I) militants gunned down a father and daughter on July 14.
Nandalal Sahu and Kajol were killed at Bijuliban under Pengeri police station in the district. Three others, including Sahu's wife, were injured.
Tinsukia deputy commissioner Puru Gupta told The Telegraph today over phone that the administration along with the police has started a drive to identify the vulnerable areas inhabited by the Hindi-speaking community. He said police officials and staff of offices of revenue circles were engaged in the exercise.
Gupta said factors like the history of past attacks in the areas, their remoteness and terrain and accessibility from police stations were being taken into account.
On Friday, director-general of police Khagen Sarma had visited Tinsukia and told the media that necessary steps were being taken to provide security to the Hindi-speaking people and thwart attempts by Ulfa (I) to carry out subversive activities.
The undivided Ulfa had targeted Hindi-speaking people residing in Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts several times in the past eight years forcing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit the places.
Gupta said there are 18 police stations in Tinsukia district, including the Sadiya civil sub-division, which was brought under a separate police district in January. There are four police stations in Sadiya, which is on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra.
Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta, who replaced Arnab Deka as superintendent of police after the latest attack, told The Telegraph that normality has returned to the district and the situation was being closely monitored. Mahanta said three additional companies of police dispatched to the district last week were being deployed and counter-insurgency operations intensified.
Tinsukia shares a vast stretch of its boundary with Arunachal Pradesh, where the militants are believed to have hideouts and use that state to cross over to Myanmar.
A magisterial inquiry has started into Wednesday's police lathicharge on protesters at Makum and whether one person died in the police action.
The administration had put on hold the compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of the kin of Dinbandhu Sharma, a resident of Filobari, who died of his injuries at Doomdooma government hospital on Wednesday night after media reports on Thursday said he actually died in a road accident.
Union minister of state for sports and youth affairs Sarbananda Sonowal visited Sahu's residence today.
In Guwahati, nearly a hundred people took out a procession today to protest against Ulfa (I) leader Paresh Barua's recent warning to Hindi-speaking people living in Assam and appealed to the people to join them in defying the threat.
Writer and veteran journalist D.N. Chakraborty, who led the protesters, said their aim was to send a strong message to Ulfa (I) to desist from violence in the name of "revolution".
The protest comes two days after Barua, "commander-in-chief" of the outlawed group, warned of "dire consequences" against the Hindi-speaking people who had protested against the killings in Tinsukia. He had asked the protesters to apologise for blaming the outfit for the killing.
