Last month in the Indian state of Tripura local militants slaughtered over 60 settlers, many of them of Bangladeshi origin. Some believe that environmental problems had more to do with the massacres than religion and politics, India's traditional sources of unrest. During the past 50 years, 10 million Bangladeshis have fled landlessness and poverty in their homeland and moved illegally into India. They are, in effect, environmental refugees and in Tripura, along with other Bengali-speaking people, they now constitute the ethnic majority. Tribal groups concerned about the loss of their land and influence have mounted campaigns of terror against the settlers.
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