Guwahati, March 25 (IANS) Tribal separatists stormed a railway station in northeastern India’s Assam state killing four people while two women were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in neighbouring Manipur state, the police said Tuesday.
“Rebels barged into the Harangajao Railway Station in southern Assam’s North Cachar Hills district late Monday night and started firing at random, killing four people, including two railway personnel,” a police official said.
The police suspect the involvement of the rag-tag Black Widow group in the attack that killed two civilians, presumably hawkers, along with the railway men.
The Black Widow is a group formed by breakaway cadres of the rebel Dima Halam Daogah (DHD), an outfit fighting for maximum autonomy for the area’s Dimasa ethnic group, which is in a majority. The DHD is currently on a ceasefire with the government.
In the past six months, Black Widow rebels have created a reign of terror in North Cachar Hills district, 300 km south of Guwahati, Assam’s largest city, ambushing and killing more than a dozen police and paramilitary troopers, killing local politicians and threatening people for ransom.
In neighbouring Manipur, unidentified gunmen shot two women dead at Heirok in Thoubal district late Monday.
“We are yet to ascertain the identity of the killers or the motive behind the attack,” a police official in Imphal, the state capital, said.