North Cachar Hills violence erupts, 8 killed

Guwahati, May 11(UNI) Eight workers engaged in railway expansion work were today killed by Dimasa militants who targeted the two National projects of railway and highway expansion in the disturbed North Cachar (NC) Hills.

Official sources said the insurgents, smarting under the loss of 12 of their cadres the previous day, descended over a labour camp at Mahur, about 45 km from Haflong and shot dead the eight workers.

This brought the whole project to a grinding halt and took the overall tally to 11 since last night. Today's incident took place at around 1400 hours.

In a retaliatory attack, suspected Dima Halam Daogah (Black Widow) militants attacked Wardingdisa, a sleepy railway station, 25 km from Haflong, the headquarters of NC Hills, killing three persons last night.

Meanwhile, labourers of both the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the NF Railway have escaped from the labour camps.

Both the national projects are worst hit as the Dimasa militants repeatedly targeted them. The PMO is directly monitoring the project and instructed enhancing the security forces. But despite that the Dimasa ultras had been continuously raiding the work sites besides extorting huge sums of money from the contractor engaged in the works, said the police.

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