Police used helicopters to spot armed mobs attacking Muslims in India's troubled northeast region of Assam today, where clashes between indigenous tribesmen and settlers have left 47 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.
Police said four people died from their wounds overnight.
More than 85,000 people have lost their homes and are being sheltered in government camps after the clashes broke out last week between mainly Hindu tribesmen and Muslim Bangladeshi settlers in the oil and tea-rich state of Assam.
"At least 47 people had lost their lives so far," said R.N. Mathur, Assam's police chief. Muslims have responded with some violence as well, he said.
The clashes have reignited a long-simmering conflict as local Assam tribes, mainly Hindu but with some Christians, fear being overrun by Muslim immigrants. More than 40 per cent of Assam is now Muslim, most of them immigrant settlers.
The violence is some of the worst since 1983, when more than 2,000 people, mainly Bangladeshi immigrants, were killed in clashes with tribal peoples in central Assam.
The current conflict was sparked by an increasingly strong student movement that has been campaigning against immigrants, analysts say.
Police said fresh clashes were being reported from southern Assam where at least 25 rubber plantation workers were attacked by Muslim settlers in Goalpara district.
An additional 500 federal police have been deployed in the state where hundreds of security forces were already trying to control the situation. Police are using helicopters to spot movement of mobs in remote areas.
The clashes are the latest bout of violence to hit India. In the eastern Orissa state, clashes between Hindus and Christians over conversions have killed at least 36 people.