Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday announced a compensation of Rs.1,00,000 each to the families of the workers from the state killed in Assam even as the death toll in two days of attacks targeting Hindi-speaking people in the northeastern state mounted to 42.
A team led by two Bihar ministers will visit the northeastern state to meet the victims' families and study the situation, Nitish said.
In Assam, 42 people — mostly from Bihar — have died in 10 separate incidents in the two eastern districts of Dibrugarh and Tinsukia since Friday night.
According to official sources, Nitish spoke to his Assam counterpart, Tarun Gogoi, on Saturday and expressed concern over security and safety of labourers from Bihar.
The Bihar government sounded a red alert across the state to avert any retaliatory attacks on people from Assam, particularly passengers of trains to and from Assam passing through this state.
"Special security will be deployed in all trains to and from Assam passing through Bihar and police have been alerted to keep a close watch," a senior police official said.
A large number of people, mostly poor workers from rural Bihar, have been working in different parts of Assam for decades.
However, after separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) vowed to free Assam of all 'non-Assamese migrant workers', Bihari migrants have been increasingly targeted during the past decade.
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