New Delhi, March 16: At least eight border guards were killed while five political activists were injured in separate attacks by secessionist rebels in India’s north-eastern state of Assam, police said Tuesday.
The militants struck twice on Monday night in the restive state which is gearing up for local elections scheduled early next month.
Soldiers from the Border Security Force (BSF) were returning from a patrol when they were ambushed by suspected National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) militants in the Ultapani forests bordering Bhutan.
‘Three BSF men were killed at the scene while five succumbed to injuries on way to the hospital,’ district police official Hemanta Kumar Das said over the telephone.
Nine BSF men who were injured in the attack were admitted to a hospital in Kokrajhar, 220 kilometres west of state capital Guwahati.
Hours earlier, militants from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) carried out a bombing at the ruling Congress party office in Guwahati that left five Congress activists injured.
An ULFA faction which is opposed to peace talks with the Indian government claimed responsibility for the attack, the PTI news agency reported. Senior ULFA leaders recently held the first round of peace talks with officials in New Delhi.
Both the NDFB and the ULFA have been fighting for independent homelands outside the Indian union.
Five major separatist and tribal groups are active in Assam. More than 6,500 people have been killed there in insurgency-related violence since 2002.
–Agencies