1.
SV ZOOM OUT Government of West Bengal sign saying Assam evacuee
0.06

2.
GV Child walking between rows of temporary huts
0.14

3.
SV Refugees outside huts weaving and chopping bamboo PAN TO nearby garden (3 shots)
0.42

4.
S Refugees sawing bamboo PAN TO man squatting with twine wound around his legs
0.48

5.
SV Refugees moving earth in baskets on their heads PAN TO refugees emptying earth in field (3 shots)
1.14

6.
GV Refugees near thatched hut building, thatched wayside shop (2 shots)
1.28

7.
GV Small market near camp with refugees trading
1.38

8.
SV Assam opposition leaders marching on Parliament House in Delhi waving flags. They walk into a police cordon and scuffle breaks out. Some manage to get through police line but are then arrested (2 shots)
2.02

9.
GV Assam opposition leaders chanting and waving hands put into the back of police van and taken away (2 shots)
2.32




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TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In India, hundreds of Government troops have been sent into the north-eastern of Assam and Tripura to stop communal violence which has left more than three hundred people dead and fifty thousand homeless. Indian newspapers said on Wednesday (11 June) that Tripura tribesmen armed with bows and arrows and guns were fighting immigrants from Bangladesh. They have been demanding the deportation of more than three million immigrants from the north-east.

SYNOPSIS: Many of those whose houses have been destroyed have fled. Some came here to north Bengal where the regional government has set up a refugee camp.

Temporary homes are being built using bamboo and polythelene to make them waterproof and a nearby garden is already well under way. They have been driven here by the Assamese who want what they call foreign immigrants - which to them means any one who has settled in Assam since 1951 - deported. In neighbouring Tripura outsiders outnumber the local population by three to one.

Fighting broke out in Tripura last weekend when tribal groups launched a boycott of bazaars to protest against immigrants. Foreign journalists have been banned from the state but Indian newspapers say the violence has spread rapidly with thousands of home being burned. Hundreds of extra troops and para-military police have been rushed into the state and security forces have been told to shoot troublemakers. Some reports suggest gun running from Bangladesh to Tripura has reached serious proportion.

Modern weapons including machine guns and automatic rifles have been used in the fighting. India's Home Minister Zail Sing flow over the trouble spots on Wednesday and later warned that the government was ready to crack down on leaders of the unrest. Meanwhile the homeless victims of the fighting were building new communities.

In New Delhi Assam opposition leaders marched on Parliament to protest about the violence in the north. They say the government should negotiate a peaceful settlement of the issue with regional leaders. Police had cordoned of the route they were taking and scuffling broke out. Some of protesters managed to get through the cordon but were soon arrested.

Not far away in Parliament there were also angry scenes. The lower house, alarmed by the scale of the violence, agreed to extend the President's crisis rule of Assam. The Home Minister told the House the situation had gone beyond the negotiation stage. What was needed now, he said, was firm-action