4 paramilitary troops killed in an ambush by suspected rebels in India’s remote northeast

Suspected rebels kill 4 troops in northeast India

GAUHATI, India — Gunmen ambushed a jeep in India’s remote northeast Monday, killing four paramilitary soldiers and wounding another three in an attack blamed on separatist rebels, police said.

The paramilitary force was patrolling the forests near the Bhutan border when they were attacked in Assam state’s Chirang district, state police inspector-general Bhaskar Mahanta said.

The attackers fled with some of the soldiers’ weapons, Mahanta told The Associated Press.

Mahanta said initial investigations suggest that the attackers were a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, an insurgent group that has been fighting for independence from India since 1986.

The movement’s leader, Ranjan Daimary, was handed over to Indian authorities by the Bangladesh government in May. He is in jail awaiting trial in the western town of Goalpara.

The soldiers belonged to the Sashastra Seema Bal or Armed Border Force that has been deployed along the frontier.

The National Democratic Front of Bodoland, along with the United Liberation Front of Asom, is one of the main separatist groups in Assam targeted by the army, police and paramilitary offensives.

More than 30 northeastern groups have fought for decades for independence from India or wide autonomy in Assam, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of the capital, New Delhi.

The militants say the Indian government exploits the region’s rich natural resources while doing little for the indigenous people, most of whom are ethnically closer to those in nearby Myanmar and China than the rest of India.