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| File photo (Pic: Worldbulletin.net) |
NEW DELHI (AA) - Angry locals in India’s northeastern state of Assam blocked a national highway Thursday to protest the killing of at least 10 people and the wounding of eight others in a decades-old land dispute with a neighboring state, according to news reports.
The killings took place Wednesday, when an armed group from neighboring Arunachal Pradesh state entered a village in the Sonitpur district of Assam and opened fire on members of a territorial safeguard committee, the reports said.
“People from Arunachal attacked a village in our state," Sanjutka Parashor, Sonitpur superintendent of police, told the English daily Times of India. "We are sending additional forces there.”
Parashor said the attack took place Wednesday afternoon around 4 p.m local time in Chauldhuwa village at the Behali Reserve Forest, which is close to the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border -- a disputed territory between the two states.
The victims belong to the Arunachal Agrashan Pratirudh Committee, formed by the Communist Party of India to safeguard Assamese territory from being taken over by people of neighboring state Arunachal Pradesh.
The armed group reportedly fired as many as 100 rounds from rifles and guns on the defense committee members, whom they consider “encroachers” in the Behali Reserve Forest. Security has been beefed up in the area.
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