Police firing in Assam, Goalpara toll climbs to five

A villager was killed and 11 others injured when police opened fire for the second day today to control a mob which attacked and seriously injured over 20 policemen and set ablaze three police vehicles in Assam's Sonitpur district.
The toll in yesterday's violence in curfew-bound Goalpara district, meanwhile, rose to five with the recovery of two bodies today.
The clash between police and irate locals broke out at Baghmari in lower Assam's Sonitpur district in the early hours when people from various 'char' (riverine) areas and other villagers, angry over the blocking of a private road by a PSU attacked and injured over 20 policemen and set ablaze three police vehicles, official sources said.

This was sequel to a long-standing dispute between a unit of Power Grid Corporation Corporation of India and the villagers on the use of private road passing through the plant. When PGCIL blocked the road by putting up a boundary wall, the villagers attacked the plant's employees.
When the police arrived at the spot at around 5.30 AM, the mob turned its ire on the personnel and seriously injured more than 20 of them, the sources said.
The police first fired rubber bullets to control the mob, which threw stones and set ablaze three police vehicles. The police then opened fire in which one villager was killed and 11 others were injured, they said.

Later, the mob blocked NH 52 which connects the district headquarters Tezpur to Dhemaji and other parts of Arunachal Pradesh at Baghmari demanding Rs 20 lakh compensation for the dead, the sources said.