Guwahati: A paramilitary trooper was killed and 15 people injured on Friday when tribal separatists attacked a passenger train in Assam.
Militants from the outlawed Jewel Garlosa faction of the Dima Haolam Daoga (DHD), popularly known as the Black Widow, attacked the Barak Valley Express, a local train, near Wadrandisa station in North Cachar Hills district, about 380 km from Assam's main city Guwahati, police said.
"The train slowed down at the Wadrandisa station to allow some passengers to disembark when a large group of heavily armed Black Widow militants waiting at the edge of the platform opened indiscriminate gunfire using automatic weapons," HC Timung, a senior official, told IANS over phone from Maibong, close to the location where the incident took place.
A paramilitary trooper was killed and 15 more were injured, two of them critically.
"Two security personnel, two women, and a child, were among those injured," Timung said.
The train operates in the North Cachar Hills, a mountainous terrain full of Black Widow rebels fighting for a separate homeland for the Dimasa tribe in south Assam.
"The militants fled the scene soon after the attack," the police official said.
On Thursday, Black Widow militants attacked a convoy of central election observers in the district although there were no casualties.
"Some of the vehicles were hit by bullets in the attack although no one was hurt," another senior police official said.
Elections in the district are scheduled for April 16 in the first phase.
The incident comes soon after serial blasts in Assam on Monday in which 10 people were killed.
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