GUWAHATI, India, 28 October — Tribal guerrillas shot dead 22 people in a remote village in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, a police spokesman said yesterday. He said a group of heavily armed Bodo militants raided the village close to the border with Bhutan on Saturday night and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing 17 non-tribal settlers on the spot. Five people later died of bullet wounds before they could be taken to a nearby hospital, police said, adding that the area was a stronghold of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland. A senior intelligence officer said the victims were petty traders and mostly from the eastern Bihar state. The group seeks an independent homeland for Bodo tribesmen, saying the federal government had neglected them and flooded Assam with outsiders. Bodos are an estimated 13 percent of Assam’s 26 million people. A military spokesman said troops deployed for counter-insurgency operations in Assam had launched a hunt for the killers. India’s far-off northeast is home to dozens of groups either fighting for independence or greater autonomy.
