More Hindi speakers die in Assam

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Guwahati

There has been rising violence in Assam Pic: Subhamoy Bhattacharjee

Four Hindi speakers have been killed by separatist militants in India's north-eastern Assam state, police say.

The outlawed ULFA and two other tribal militias are suspected of carrying out the attacks.

The latest deaths bring to more than 30 the number of people killed in rebel attacks in Assam in the past six days.

Twenty-six were members of the Hindi-speaking community. All three recent attacks occurred in the hill district of Karbi Anglong.

In the latest attack, armed rebels swooped down on the Rangmahal ghat village in Karbi Anglong and opened indiscriminate fire on Hindi-speaking households.

Two men, one woman and a child of a Hindi-speaking family were killed on the spot.

Senior police official SK Gogoi said the rebels had chosen Karbi Anglong because the presence of security forces was thin in this central hill district.

They were mostly deployed in the districts of Upper Assam where the rebels struck heavily earlier this year, he added.

Safe shelters

Mr Gogoi also told the BBC that Karbi Anglong was not affected by floods.

"The rebels were probably avoiding flood-affected districts so that they don't stand accused of disrupting relief," he said.

Karbi Anglong's deputy commissioner M Angamuthu said the district administration had started moving Hindi-speaking settlers living in outlying villages to some safe shelters set up with adequate police protection.

"We can't give police protection to all outlying villages, so we are trying to bring to concentrate them in some safe locations we can guard properly," he said.

Late on Friday night, a group of militants stormed into the remote hamlet of Dolamara and shot dead 14 people from two Hindi-speaking trading families.

The militants also hurled a grenade at a shop in the same district, killing a two-year-old child.

Nine others, including two policemen, were injured in yet another bomb blast in the district's main town, Diphu, on Thursday.

Police say the local tribal militia Karbi Longpi North Cachar Liberation Front (KLNLF) might have been helping the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) carry out the strikes.

The militants killed eight Hindi-speaking people at Ampahar in the same area on Wednesday.

Boycott call

Police say militants have stepped up offensives to stop people taking part in celebrations marking India's 61st Independence Day on 15 August.

The Indian army is on alert across Assam

The ULFA and other rebel organisations have urged people in north-eastern India to boycott the event.

The chief minister said security forces had been put on alert, but the state government was ready to start a peace process with the ULFA.

The group has been pursuing an armed rebellion against what it terms colonial rule by Delhi since 1979.

An effort to start peace talks between the rebels and the Indian government fell through last year.

The militants killed nearly 70 Hindi-speaking migrants across the state last January. It has since been on the offensive.

The rebel group says migrants and settlers from India's heartland states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are threatening the indigenous people of Assam.

The KLNLF and KRA have also been fighting for a homeland for tribal Karbis living in the two hill districts of Assam - Karbi Anglong and North Cachar.