Hindi-speaking people gunned down by separatists in Assam
IRNA
Guwahati, Nov 19, IRNA -- At least four Hindi-speaking people were killed and seven seriously wounded Tuesday in an attack by separatists in India`s tension-wracked northeastern state of Assam, officials said Wednesday. A police spokesman said heavily armed militants belonging to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) attacked a roadside hotel at village Sagolia, 340 kilometers west of Assam`s capital Guwahati, around 7 PM Tuesday. "The militants entered the hotel where a group of truck drivers were watching the final match of the tri-nation cricket series between India-Australia and opened indiscriminate gunfire," a police official said. "Four persons, all of them Hindi-speaking people, died and seven more were injured in the attack." The killings are the latest in a string of escalating clashes between ethnic Assamese and Hindi-speaking settlers. The death toll in the past one week has gone up to six, all Hindi-speaking people killed by ULFA rebels. More than 50 Hindi-speaking people from the eastern state of Bihar residing in Assam have been injured in separate incidents of violence, and up to 150 houses belonging to the community set ablaze across the state. The attacks came after jobless Biharis last week stormed five Assam-bound trains, beating and injuring 50 Assamese people. The mobs were angry that youths in Assam had prevented candidates from Bihar from taking recruitment tests for jobs at the state-run railways. /213 End
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