Dozens killed in rebel violence in India's Assam

The death toll after militant attacks in India's remote eastern state, Assam, has risen to 52, local police officials told reporters. A police inspector in the state's main city, Guwahati, told the Associated Press that rebels executed a series of five coordinated attacks on Tuesday, gunning down 37 members of indigenous tribes, also known as Adivasis, in Sonitpur district and 15 others in Kokrajhar. 80 more were injured, out of which 20 were in "critical condition," police said.

"This is one of the most barbaric attacks in recent times with the militants not even sparing infants," state Chief Minister Tarum Gogoi told the French news agency AFP, referring to the 12 children that were killed in the incident.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the attacks, calling them "an act of cowardice." The federal home minister, Rajnath Singh, would travel to the region to assess the situation, he said.

The violence has been blamed on members of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a separatist militant organization that has been violently campaigning for a separate country for the Bodo people, an indigenous tribe native to eastern India.

The guerillas have been targeting Muslim settlers and other tribe members who work in Assam's tea plantations. Earlier this year, 10,000 people fled their homes following sectarian violence that left more than 45 people dead.

In 2012, similar ethnic clashes took place in Assam, killing over a hundred and displacing 400,000. The state has a history of ethnic violence between its communities. An influx of immigrants from across the border in Bangladesh has also compounded the problem.

mg/es (AP,AFP)