November 16, 2003	Sunday	Ramazan 20, 1424

GUWAHATI, Nov 15: Tribal separatists in Assam on Saturday threatened attacks on Hindi-speaking people to protest assaults on Assamese train passengers in northern India.

“If the recent racist violence is not stopped immediately, it would have far-reaching consequences throughout the region,” seven separatist outfits said in a joint statement.

Paresh Baruah, commander-in-chief of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) rebel group which signed the statement, urged all Hindi-speaking people to leave Assam “immediately”.

“There would be retaliation to protest the attacks on our people,” he said.

The threats follow a string of attacks by groups of armed youth in Bihar on train passengers bound for Assam.

Bihar’s home secretary said on Friday that mobs had injured at least 50 people on five trains to protest alleged discrimination against candidates from Bihar who had applied for jobs with Indian Railways in Assam.

Tension has simmered for years in Assam with settlers from India’s populated Ganges plain, with rebels accusing the Hindi speakers of altering the demographic balance and local leaders charging that the new residents take away jobs.

The ULFA in 2000 carried out a campaign against Hindi-speaking people, killing up to 150 of them.

An influential students group also warned of violence. “There are thousands of Bihari people working in Assam and there could be retaliatory attacks if the attacks continue,” said Amiya Bhuyan, general secretary of the All Assam Students’ Union.

The student union called a general strike across Assam on Monday to protest the attacks in Bihar.

BAN ON HINDI FILMS: Cinemas in northeastern India were deserted on Saturday except for troops as a ban on Hindi-language films declared by separatists came into effect.

Eleven rebel groups spread across five of India’s seven northeastern states had demanded Bollywood films be taken out of cinemas, saying they posed a threat to traditional culture.

Most cinemas in Assam’s capital Guwahati had switched to local-language movies, but a few defied the ban by showing Bollywood films.

P. Das, the manager of a cinema here that continued to play Hindi films, said he sold fewer than 15 percent of tickets for the morning show on Saturday, down from between 60 and 70 percent a day before.

Rebel groups, which resent the influx of settlers from India’s densely populated Hindi-speaking Ganges plain, had in a joint statement warned of “dire consequences” for cinemas showing Bollywood fare.

The only state where the ban did not go into effect was relatively peaceful Mizoram. In Manipur, bordering Myanmar, militants have barred Hindi films since 2001.

Indian troops were seen in force around cinemas across the northeast, where at least 30 rebel groups are active and more than 50,000 people have died in insurgency since 1947.

“Extra security has been posted at the cinema halls besides in the houses of some of the filmmakers and people belonging to the cinema world as precautionary measures,” said a senior official in Guwahati.

Cinema workers in other northeastern states also reported thin attendance.

“People are generally scared to come to the halls in view of the militant ban,” a cinema owner in Tripura’s capital, Agartala, said.

The Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, which represents the industry, has urged cinema owners to defy the ban and warned of the economic impact of withdrawing Bollywood potboilers.

The separatists have not banned the screening of Western films, which remain popular in a region where English is more widely spoken than Hindi. —AFP