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Seven villagers and two armymen, including a major, were killed in a village under Assam's Kamrup district on Sunday afternoon following a skirmish between an army party and villagers.
The clash took place around 1330 hours IST at Adhiarpara Dehpuria village under Hajo police station of Kamrup distrtict some 60 km from Assam's capital Guwahati.
Eight villagers and a armyman was injured in the clash. Hajo police station officials reported that the clash followed an altercation between the army patrol unit, apparently in civvies, and the villagers, who suspected them to be militants. Two armymen were killed by villagers following which rest of the army jawans opened indiscriminate fire, killing seven villagers on the spot.
The injured have been brought to the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital. Senior ministers, top civil and police officials and the senior army officials of the Rangiya-based 21 Mountain Division have rushed to the spot. The scene at the village is reported to be tense but under control.
The army has termed the killings as a case of "mistaken identity".
According Colonel AK Agarwalla of the tactical HQ of the Tezpur-based 4 Corps said a team of eight-member army team in civvies had gone to village Adhiarpara Dehpuria under Hajo Police Station after receiving a tip-off that militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom were planning to come to the village in order to collect extortion money from a teacher.
"It was thought so important that a major led the operation but the villagers took the team to be the gang of ULFA members and simply overpowered the armymen and hacked the officer Major RBS Thabah and sepoy Bijoy Deuri before the rest of the armymen opened fire in self-defence killing the villagers," he said.
Col Agarwalla said the armymen in civvies were taken to be militants because they belonged to the 10 Assam Regiment, whose personnel are mostly drawn from the northeastern states.
Villagers, however, have a different tale to relate.
Eyewitnesses say that the army major and his party was accompanying a surrendered ULFA militant who was trying to extort money from a villager and the villagers were ready to counter them.
The surrendered militant fled the scene after it became apparent that the villagers had outnumbered the securitymen leaving the armymen to face the wrath of the villagers, who killed the major, a sepoy and seriously injured a Junior Commissioned Officer.