1968; March: Karimganj (Assam)

47% Hindus, 52% Muslims

Chief Minister of Assam: B. P. Chaliha, Congress Party, December 1957–November 1970

Violence flared up in the district of Karimganj (Assam) after an argument erupted between Hindu and Muslim teenagers, merely over a cow. An existing local rivalry between Hindu and Muslim smugglers constituted the underlying cause of the riots. Other accounts noted that violence had broken out the very day that the CPI (Communist Party of India) organized a massive demonstration of tea workers - which included 1,500 Muslim laborers. That appeal to communal sentiments was designed to break the workers’ unity. The violence claimed 41 Hindu lives and 41 Muslim lives according to some sources but only seven lives according to others.

***(Z. Hasan 1984: 78); *(Rajeshwari 2004)