22 November 2008
Jagjit Saikia
Shooting
Jagjit Saikia was shot dead in northeastern Indian state of Assam on Saturday.
Unidentified assailants shot Saikia several times at point blank-range near his office in the town of Kokrajhar, according to news reports and a local journalists’ representative. Saikia worked as district correspondent for the vernacular daily Amar Asom based in Assam’s capital of Guwahati. Doctors declared Saikia dead from at least five gunshot wounds to the chest, according to local news reports.
Police are still investigating the killing and no arrests have been made, according to local news reports. Saikia frequently wrote about rivalries between armed groups and political organizations fighting over control of Kokrajhar and neighboring western districts of Assam that are ethnically Bodo. Insurgents have advocated, at times violently, for a separate Bodo state despite ongoing peace negotiations with the central Indian government, according to published reports.
