New Delhi: Five people were killed and one injured in Assam’s Diyungbra in the Dima Hasao on the night of August 26. Five militants, thought to belong to the Dimasa National Liberation Army (DNLA) opened fire on the trucks of the victims before setting them on fire, the Hindustan Times reported.The incident took place around 8:30 pm when the militants attacked the trucks, six of which were carrying cement and one was carrying coal. The alleged DNLA attack is thought to have been instigated by a cement factory’s refusal to acquiesce to the separatist group’s extortion attempts, according to Hindustan Times.Police recovered the bodies of the five deceased from where the incident took place on Umrangso Lanka road before launching a widespread manhunt for the perpetrators, alongside the army’s Assam Rifles unit, district superintendent of police (DSP) Jayant Singh told NDTV.The DNLA is a separatist group operating mainly in central and South Assam, as well as parts of neighbouring Nagaland. Established in 2019, the group has allegedly been involved in several extortion and abduction attempts in the region, as reported by the Deccan Herald.The group demands a sovereign state for the Dimasa people, an indigenous tribe of the state. The DNLA claims to protect the tribe’s culture and language and aims to restore the historical Dimasa kingdom. They are known to be particularly active in the Dima Hasao district, where the attack took place. The district has had its own history of being a hotbed for insurgent activity, however, a period of relative calm has prevailed for the past five years.This calm was, however, disturbed earlier in this year in May when security forces six killed members of the group in an encounter following their assassination of a young man from the Dhansiri district. Police had noted that arms and ammunition were recovered from the terrorists. Police have since reportedly stepped up their efforts against the militant group.
