Suspected rebels woke up sleeping villagers in northeastern India and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing six of them and raising the death toll to 63 from three days of violence in a region where dozens of ethnic rebel groups are fighting for separate homelands.
Seven people were wounded when the group of heavily armed militants descended on Gelapukhuri, a village 210km north of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, said police officer P. Baruah, who was reached from the region by telephone.
The rebels shot four of the villagers to death instantly, Baruah said. Nine wounded were rushed to a local hospital, where two succumbed to their injuries, he said.
Baruah blamed the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) for the attack, the latest in a spasm of violence that claimed 57 lives over the weekend, when suspected rebels bombed utilities, a tea plantation and a crowded marketplace.
Meanwhile, shops and schools were closed and most traffic halted in parts of Assam state yesterday during a dawn-to-dusk strike called by a students' group to protest the killings, said A. K. Bhutani, the district magistrate of Kokrajhar, which was hit by several bomb and gunfire attacks over the weekend.
The All Bodo Students' Union, a tribal student group, called for the general strike in seven of the state's 27 districts where it commands support. The group had helped broker a peace accord between the federal government and an insurgent group, the Bodo Liberation Tigers, in western Assam last year.
At least 18 bombings and shootings have been carried out in Nagaland and Assam states since Saturday. The attacks -- particularly an explosion on Saturday that ripped through a railway station full of commuters -- angered some separatist leaders.
A leader of one separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been quoted as taking responsibility for some of the attacks.
No arrests have been made, police said. Assam's top police official has blamed all of the attacks on two militant groups -- the NDFB and the ULFA.
"The entire string of attacks was a joint operation by the ULFA and the NDFB," Inspector-General Khagen Sarma said.
On Sunday, the elusive commander in chief of the outlawed ULFA, Paresh Barua, claimed responsibility for four of the attacks in Assam state, where the group has been fighting for a separate homeland since 1979 in an insurgency that has left more than 10,000 dead in the past decade.
"This is our answer to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's cease-fire call," the English-language newspaper The Sentinel quoted Barua as saying.
Government officials last week offered a ceasefire to both militant groups, and asked for a response before Oct. 15.
Sunday was the 18th anniversary of the founding of the NDFB, which is demanding a homeland for Boroland, a region that straddles Nagaland and Assam states. Nearly 40 separatist groups have been fighting in the mountainous region of multiple ethnicities wedged between Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar.
Rebels in Nagaland have been leading one of Asia's longest running separatist conflicts, dating to shortly before India gained independence from Britain in 1947. Some 15,000 people have been kil-led in the fighting.
But one Naga separatist group engaged in talks with the government denounced the attacks, and said it was launching its own investigation into the violence. Kraibo Chawang, of the separatist National Socialist Council of Nagaland, said that the assaults were "aimed at derailing and sabotaging our peace talks with the Indian government."
Nagaland's death toll stood at 28, while Assam's rose yesterday to 35.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in