Guwahati: With Assam’s 2.5 crore voters gearing up for the April 9 assembly polls, the state stands at crossroads—yearning for a future that keeps pace with the world’s rapid stride, even as memories linger of its darkest chapters marked by relentless violence, gunfire, blasts and the tragic loss of innocent lives.
From mid 90’s to 2015, Assam witnessed the darkest era of its history as the state was crumbled with insurgency and a silent illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Numbers of home grown insurgency groups namely ULFA, NDFB, BLT, DHD, DNLA and many more were active with their bases in Bangladesh and Myanmar creating nightmares for the civilians of the state. Wrong policies adopted by the Central and state governments completely failed to tackle the insurgency problem of the state resulting in serial blasts, violence, gunfights and killings of innocent civilians, security personnel and militants.
In 2001 the Congress party came to power in Dispur promising restoration of permanent peace and all round development in the state. But, fastened by huge corruption and wrong policies, the people of Assam didn’t find relief during the Congress tenure from 2001 to 2016. Instead, this period was marred by continuous violence, blasts, attacks, encounters and ethnic clashes. Under the leadership of the then chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Congress government in Assam and in the centre from 2004 mishandled the insurgency problem in the state resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and security personnel and hundreds of blasts that injured another thousands of people.
As per the Congress government data, placed in the state assembly in March 2015, Assam was shaken by 810 bomb blasts. From May 2001 to February 471 civilians were killed in 810 blasts executed by several insurgency groups. 76 security personnel were also killed in blasts and attacks by militant outfits. This was government data placed in the state assembly, however many agencies which compiles data on terrorism and insurgency claimed that the numbers of casualty in Assam during the period was much higher. Assam recorded fatalities in different blasts and attacks by militant outfits in triple digits from 2001 to 2015. In 2001 alone 565 people were killed in insurgency related violence in the state which includes 183 civilians, 76 security personnel and 287 militants.
19 people killed in that year were never identified. The fatalities remained in double digits between 2016 to 2018. In 2016 BJP came into power in Assam and things started taking a turn slowly. The central government under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi took a different approach to the insurgency problem in Assam and in the entire Northeast region. Talks and peace agreements with banned outfits were initiated along with strict law and order enforcement across Assam by central and state security agencies. These measures resulted in a drastic reduction of violence in Assam as well in the entire Northeast states. In 2019 Assam saw the lowest violence related casualties in nearly two decades reducing the fatalities to only 3.
In the subsequent years the violence, blast and attacks came down noticeably resulting in less numbers of deaths of civilians. Between 2019 to 2024 only 47 insurgency related deaths were recorded in the state which includes 36 militants and 11 civilians. 2025/26 were the most peaceful years for the state with no insurgency casualty reported in the state. On the other hand, during the Congress rule from 2001 to 2016, Assam saw a number of ethnic clashes which took hundreds of lives. In 2003 Kuki-Hmar and Dimasa ethnic clashes in Dima Hasao district of Assam 57 people were killed and over a hundred people were injured.
The Kuki-Karbi ethnic clash in 2003/04 in Karbi Anglong district took the lives of 98 people. 106 people were killed in ethnic clashes between Karbi and Dimasa communities in 2005. Similarly 64 people were killed in ethnic clashes between Bodo and Muslims in 2008 in the Bodoland Territorial Region(BTR). The ethnic clash between Zeme Naga and Dimasa took the lives of 73 people in Dima Hasao district. Moreover the Bodo-Muslim clash in 2012 in BTR region took the lives of 109 people. Apart from these, the Garo-Rabha clash in 2011 in Goalpara district, Karbi-Renga Naga Clash in 2013 in Karbi Anglong district claimed the lives of over 40 people in the state.
