India attack death toll rises to 72
The death toll from rebel violence in remote north-eastern India has risen to 72 with the recovery of more bodies from abandoned villages.
SN Singh, a police official in Assam, said today that two districts where separatist rebels gunned down Adivasi tribe members remained tense but calm with no fresh violence in the last 24 hours.
The authorities have said rebels belonging to a faction of an indigenous separatist group called the National Democratic Front of Bodoland attacked tribal settlers known as Adivasi late on Tuesday.
Most of the Adivasis, whose ancestors migrated to Assam more than 100 years ago, work on tea plantations.
Today, hundreds of terrified survivors in Sonitpur, the worst affected district, stayed huddled in a local church and school.
