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| India-Pakistan |
| India: 23 killed in sectarian attacks |
| 2014-05-03 |
| [The Peninsula] Tribal separatists killed at least 12 Moslems in the northeastern state of Assam yesterday, taking the toll to 23 following two days of deadly carnage, police said. "Some 10 heavily armed gunnies went on a rampage, torching about 20 houses and killing at least 12 people," police inspector general S N Singh said. The attack was reported in Narayanguri village in Baksa district, some 200 kilometres west of Assam's main city of Guwahati. On Thursday night rebels had killed three villagers in the same district and eight more in neighbouring Kokrajhar, opening fire on the victims as they slept in their homes. The attacks prompted security forces to launch a massive hunt for the guerillas. An indefinite curfew has been imposed in the violence-torn districts, with shoot-at-sight orders given to police, Singh said. India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde spoke to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi over phone, assuring him of every kind of help to deal with the situation. The victims of the attacks were Moslem migrants who have been locked in staggered land disputes with indigenous Bodo tribes in the tea-growing state that borders Bhutan and Bangladesh. The attacks come as India votes in a multi-phased general election that began on April 7. Voting in Assam has ended, with April 24 the last day of polling. Police blamed the attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which has been demanding a separate homeland for decades. Survivors of Thursday's attack in Kokrajhar district described how a group of around 20 masked gunnies had carried out the killings late on Thursday night. "We were asleep when gunnies barged into our home and sprayed bullets, killing my elderly mother, my wife and my four-year-old daughter," Siraj Ali told a local TV channel. "I don't have anyone left in my family now," Ali added. Seventeen people were killed in festivities in the same region in January and thousands of others fled their homes for fear of further attacks. |
| Posted by:Fred |