Militants kill 5 migrant labourers in Assam
ASSOCIATED PRESS

GUWAHATI, JAN 23: Twenty masked gunmen burst into a house where migrant woodcutters were sleeping in Assam, killing five in indiscriminate firing and wounding two, police said on Tuesday.

There was no claim of responsibility for the late Monday night attack and police said they did not know the identity of the gunmen, but blamed it on separatist militants. Militants carry out frequent attacks on migrant labourers, traders and plantation managers who are non-Assamese. In the last three months, such attacks killed 109 non-Assamese. Monday night's attack in the village of Sankuchi, 140 km west of the state capital, Guwahati, was the first this year. Police speculated that it was part of the militants' build-up to the Republic Day on Friday. Militant groups in all seven northeastern states oppose celebration of the day and have warned people not to participate. Increased violent attacks are usually carried out in the week or two before Republic Day and before Independence Day. On Monday, soldiers said they averted a major train disaster in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district by defusing a 12-kg sophisticated explosive planted on a railway track.

At least 50,000 army, police, and paramilitary soldiers have taken up positions in the seven insurgency-wracked northeastern states and are on high alert for Republic Day violence.

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