By IRNA,
Guwahati, India : Four Indian frontier guards were killed and three injured in an ambush Monday by tribal separatists in the restive northeastern state of Assam, bordering Bhutan, officials said.
A police spokesperson said militants of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) attacked a vehicle of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) near Amlaiguri village in Chirang district, about 230 km west of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“A vehicle carrying about seven SSB troopers were on a routine patrol in the area when NDFB militants ambushed them with automatic weapons from behind some thick undergrowth,” Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Assam Police Inspector General, said.
The dead include the SSB Assistant Commandant Kishor Kunal and three troopers.
“The NDFB militants later decamped with two rifles and two pistols from the dead troopers,” Mahanta said.
The SSB is deployed to guard the 605 km long Indian Bhutan border along Assam.
The NDFB is a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the Bodo tribe in western Assam.
A massive security hunt is now in the jungles to nab the rebels with security forces hunting the NDFB militants, numbering about 10 to 12.
“The area is a known NDFB stronghold and the remoteness has always been an advantage to them,” the police official said.
More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades.