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Tribal
outfit strikes again, Assam death toll is 22
Tuesday November 09, 2010 04:37:51 PM,
IANS
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Guwahati: Tribal separatists continued their killing spree in Assam Tuesday,
gunning down two more non-tribals and taking the death toll in
overnight serial attacks to 22, police said.
Militants of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)
Tuesday afternoon attacked and killed two people near Ultapani
village in Kokrajhar district, about 260 km west of Assam's main
city Guwahati.
"Two non-tribal people were killed in the attack. The casualty
figure could go up as we suspect some more people could have been
either injured or killed," Kokrajhar police chief P.K. Dutta told
IANS on telephone.
"The area where the incident took place is close to the Bhutan
border and is densely forested. Hence it is difficult to access
the location to get further details."
The NDFB has been carrying out coordinated strikes since Monday
evening. It has killed 22 people and wounded eight in eight
separate attacks, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
The Assam government has sounded a security alert and announced a
coordinate security offensive.
"We are not going to be cowed down by terror. The army, police and
paramilitary forces have launched massive operations in NDFB
pockets," Gogoi said.
A police spokesperson said 15 of those killed were from Sonitpur
district - eight of them bus passengers including a woman.
The attacks came hours after security forces Monday morning gunned
down an NDFB militant in Sonitpur district.
The tribal separatists had threatened to kill 20 or more people in
retaliation and lived up to their warning.
"Mahesh Basumatary, who the police claimed was an NDFB militant
and killed Monday, is an innocent Bodo civilian. So we took
revenge for his death," NDFB spokesperson B. Sadbangso told IANS
on telephone from an undisclosed location.
"We warn of more violent attacks if the security forces continue
with their offensive against us."
On Nov 1, the NDFB threatened to kill 20 or more people for every
Bodo killed by the security forces.
"One innocent Bodo would be equal to 20 Indians or may be more. We
don't care who they are, Indian civilian or Indian forces," B.
Jwngkhang of the Bodoland Army, the NDFB armed wing, said in an
e-mailed statement Nov 1.
Security forces in the past three months have killed at least 20
NDFB cadres, besides arresting more than 15 militants even as the
tribal group continued with a series of kidnappings for money.
The NDFB is fighting for an independent homeland for the Bodo
tribe in Assam. There are some three million Bodo tribal people in
the state of 26 million people.
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