By IANS
Guwahati : A tribal Naga mob, backed by armed separatists, Thursday attacked three villages in eastern Assam with bombs and crude weapons, killing two people and wounding six, officials said.
A police spokesman said a large group of heavily armed Nagas attacked the three villages near Geleki, bordering Nagaland, in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district, about 370 km from the state's main city Guwahati.
The mob also set ablaze about a dozen houses belonging to Assamese people and triggered a powerful explosion in the area. Witnesses, however, said over 50 houses were burnt down in the raid by the Nagas.
"Two people were killed and six wounded in attacks by Nagas inside Assam's territory and a bomb blast triggered by the mob," a senior Assam police official told IANS.
The immediate provocation for the raid was not immediately known.
But police and intelligence officials said the attackers were backed by militants of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).
"It appears that the Nagas wanted to usurp the land and so they carried out the attack. Nagaland often claims some parts of Assam as its territory which, in fact, is not correct," another senior police official said.
"We have no information about any such attack. Whenever there are incidents, Assam blames the Nagas," a senior Nagaland police official said by telephone from state capital Kohima.