NEW DELHI, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- At least 23 people have died in rebel gun attacks including bus passengers and shoppers at an open-air market in India's northeast state of Assam.
Police said the gunmen are suspected members of a militant wing of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. They fired at a private chartered bus near Bhoimari village, about 150 miles north of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
"The NDFB fired at the bus, forcing the driver to stop, after which the militants lined up all the passengers on the road and took away at least 10 of them at gunpoint," Assam Police Chief Shankar Baruah said.
Many were shot in the nearby forest, he said. "All the dead were Hindi-speaking people hailing from Bihar and were Arunachal Pradesh (state) government employees," Baruah said.
Police recovered the bodies of eight people from a thickly wooded area.
Police, army and paramilitary soldiers are searching the area for the gunmen and several missing passengers.
In a separate incident, heavily armed militants killed at least five people, including a woman, around 6 p.m. in a market in Belseri village, close to the first attack near Bhoimari village. All the victims in the Belseri attack were also Hindi.
The Bodos are a culturally separate group in Assam who are mostly Hindus or Christians. They account for about 10 percent of Assam's nearly 27 million people and live in the western and northern parts of the state.
UPI
