Five people were killed in Assam’s Dima Hasao district on late Thursday night after suspected Dimasa National Liberation Army militants attacked their trucks, the Hindustan Times reported.
The militants stopped seven trucks around 8.30 pm, after which they fired indiscriminately at them, the newspaper quoted Jayant Singh, the Dima Hasao superintendent of police, as saying. The militants then allegedly set the trucks on fire.
Six of the trucks were said to have been carrying cement, while one was laden with coal. The militants carried out the attack as a cement factory had refused to yield to the DNLA’s extortion demands, claimed the authorities.
The police and the Army’s Assam Rifles unit have begun a combing operation to search for militants in the region, NDTV reported.
The DNLA militant group
The DNLA, which was launched in April 2019, seeks an independent country for the Dimasa community, according to The Print.
The Dimasas are an indigenous community living in Assam and Nagaland. Most of them live in the Dima Hasao Autonomous District Council, Karbi Anglong Autonomous District Council, Cachar District, Nagaon District of Assam, and Nagaland’s Dhansiri region, The Print quoted research scholar Bidhan Barman as saying.
Several members of the DNLA have been killed in gun battles with security forces in recent months.
In May, six members of the militant group were killed in a gunfight with security forces near the Assam-Nagaland border, India Today reported.
In April 2020, two militants from the group were killed in a gun battle with security forces in the Karbi Anglong district.
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