Two migrants, Congress leader killed in Assam
29 Jan, 2007
GUWAHATI: Four people were killed, including two migrant workers and a ruling Congress party leader, in fresh violence in Assam, the latest in a wave of bombings and shootouts, officials said on Monday.
A police spokesman said heavily armed militants suspected to be from the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) late Monday attacked Pachmile village in Tinsukia district, about 580 km east of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
"Initial reports say two migrant workers were killed in a shootout by militants," Tinsukia district magistrate Absar Hazarika said.
Police and witnesses said the rebels entered a village house and fired indiscriminately killing two people - both daily wage earners.
"The two belonged to the same family. The militants spared their wives," village headman Ram Surat Shah said.
In another incident, militants shot dead a village-level Congress party leader in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district - the fourth such attack targeting politicians of the ruling party.
The rebels had earlier asked migrants to leave Assam and also threatened to attack Congress party leaders if New Delhi did not stop a counter-insurgency offensive against the outfit immediately.
Security forces late Sunday killed an ULFA guerrilla in Tinsukia district.
"The rebel who was killed in the encounter was believed to be one of the key members involved in the targeted attacks on migrants earlier this month," a senior police official said.
On Sunday, ULFA rebels ambushed a police convoy in eastern Assam wounding three people, including a policeman and two civilians.
There had been a string of separatist attacks in Assam in the run-up to the Republic Day in which 86 people were killed in separate incidents of bombings and shootouts in the past three weeks.
The bombings were preceded by the slaughter Jan 5-8 in eastern Assam by separatist guerrillas of 73 people - 61 of them migrants. At least 10,000 people in Assam, mostly civilians, have died in fighting between government forces and separatists during the last two decades.