Separatists kill 6 labourers in India's Assam state
Source: Reuters
GUWAHATI, India, May 15 (Reuters) - Separatist rebels killed six immigrant labourers in coordinated strikes on Tuesday in northeast India's restive Assam state, police said. Guerrillas from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) gunned down five people near Dibrugarh and another group killed a worker in the nearby town of Sivasagar, both in eastern parts of the state. All the victims were from India's poor Bihar state. The rebels have often targeted immigrant labourers from Bihar, whom they accuse of diluting Assam culture. Dibrugarh is around 500 km (310 miles) east of Guwahati, the state's main city. In January, ULFA rebels killed 55 people, mostly labourers from Bihar. Tuesday's attacks came a day after five people were killed on Sunday in ethnic clashes in eastern Assam. Two people were killed on Monday in a bomb blast set off by the rebels at a market in Guwahati. More than 20 000 people have been killed since the insurgency began in Assam in 1979. The ULFA accuses New Delhi of plundering the state's mineral and forest resources, neglecting welfare of the local people and flooding the area with outsiders.
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