At least 23 people, including children and women, were killed and 14 seriously injured by heavily armed NDFB(S) militants in two communally-sensitive districts of Kokrajhar and Baksa of Assam.
Shoot-at-sight was ordered and indefinite curfew imposed on Friday night in Kokrajhar and Baksa districts, falling under Bodoland Territorial Administration Districts (BTAD) area, which bore the brunt of the violence, police sources said.
Indefinite curfew was enforced in Chirang district, which comes under BTAD jurisdiction, and parts of Dhubri district also as a precautionary measure, they added.
Curfew was in force from 6 pm on Friday to 4 am on Saturday in Baksa district’s Salbari sub-division and pockets of Mushalpur and Tamulpur sub-divisions.
A group of 40 NDFB-Songbijit militants, armed with AK-47 rifles, swooped down on Balapara-I village in Kokrajhar district in the early hours of Friday and fired indiscriminately, entering three houses one after another killing seven persons on the spot, police said.
IGP L R Bishnoi said two children and four women of the minority community were among the seven persons gunned down.
The body of a three-year-old child, also killed in the attack, was recovered from the area later, the police said, adding that 13 people were seriously injured.
Later, on Friday night, 12 bullet-riddled bodies, including of five women and a child, were recovered from Nankekhadrabari and Nayanguri villages in Baksa district, police officials said.
At least 70 houses of the minority community were torched on the banks of Beki river near the Manas National Park in the district.