Security cover for workers in Assam

The government is taking all measures to ensure that the situation does not take a communal turn.

In the wake of massacre of Hindi-speaking people, the Assam government on Monday decided to provide security cover to thousands of brick kiln workers who have been targeted by the ULFA.

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"The brick kiln workers in the districts would be brought to a designated place after their day's work where strict security would be provide from Monday onwards", state government spokesman and minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in Guwahati.

The government was taking all measures to ensure that the situation does not take a communal turn as some vested interests were engaged in an SMS campaign from their mobiles in a bid to arouse communal passion in Tinsukia, he said.

He said the respective district administrations have been instructed to provide security cover, as the workers tend to stay in a scattered manner and fall easy prey to the militants.

The exercise would be done in all the districts of the state except Barak valley, as the government did not want such kind of violence to recur, Sarma said.

The government, he said, was considering convening a "secret assembly session" on the ULFA issue as demanded by the opposition parties.

Sarma denied there was a mass exodus of Hindi-speaking people saying that some people had gone only in groups.