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Rediff.com  » News » Body of Assam Congress leader recovered

Body of Assam Congress leader recovered

By K Anurag in Guwahati
December 17, 2007 18:28 IST
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The police on Monday recovered the body of a Congress leader and member of the local regional panchayat body at Chabua in Dibrugarh district of eastern Assam.

The police said the body of Tonen Gogoi did not have any visible injury marks and that the body has been sent for post-mortem.

The banned United Liberation Front of Asom had warned of attacks on Congressmen in the run-up to the forthcoming panchayat body elections in the state.

The police, however, haven't ruled out the possibility of suicide, as the Congress leader was not given a party ticket to contest the polls this time.

The deceased was a sitting regional panchayat body member and represented the panchayat constituency that includes Jerai Gaon, the ancestral village of ULFA's commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah.

Meanwhile, the Assam government has asked all the political leaders and legislators not to move around without their personal security officers because of the looming threat from militants in the run-up to the panchayat elections.

Earlier this week, militants gunned down a former vice-president of the Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party and attacked legislator Padma Hazarika, a leader of the Asom Gana Parishad, a regional party.

Hazarika was seriously inured after receiving five bullets to his body. The state government said the AGP legislator was without any of his five PSOs at the time of attack and was driving his personal car.

The state government has instructed all districts in the state to sound an alert and take all possible measures to prevent militant attacks on politicians during the panchayat polls.

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K Anurag in Guwahati