Three people, including two tribal separatists, were killed and three civilians wounded in a shootout by unidentified gunmen in Assam, officials said Sunday.

A police spokesperson said heavily armed masked gunmen late Saturday attacked a group of people at village Mukuldang in Kokrajhar district, about 220 km west of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.

“The gunmen entered the village and opened indiscriminate firing on a group of people in which two NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland) militants belonging to the ceasefire group and a daily wage earner were killed,” a police officer said.

Three other locals were injured in the attack.

“We are investigating into the incident and so far we have no clue,” the officer said.

The gunmen fled the area on motorcycles immediately after the attack.

The NDFB pro-talk faction have accused the now disbanded Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) of carrying out the attack.

“This is nothing but fratricidal attacks on our members by the ex-BLT,” B. Sudem, NDFB pro-talk leader, said.

The ex-BLT denied the charges.

A faction of the NDFB headed by Gobinda Basumatary entered into a ceasefire in 2005, while another group led by guerrilla leader Ranjan Daimary is waging a war for independence for the Bodo tribal people.

Fratricidal clashes between the NDFB and the ex-BLT have claimed more than 50 lives in the past two years in western Assam.

Guwahati, Jan 2 (IANS) A speeding freight train mowed down four wild Asiatic elephants, including two calves, amid dense fog in Assam Saturday, the authorities said.
A railway spokesperson said the incident occurred near Walingdisa railway station in Karbi Anglong district, about 270 km east of Assam’s main city Guwahati. The train was carrying petroleum products.

“The train hit the elephant herd squatting on the track. The train driver probably did not see the herd because of dense fog,” Northeast Frontier Railways chief spokesperson S. Hajong told IANS.

Witnesses said the crash cut the calves after dragging them for about 200 metres.

“The two adult elephants were in a pool of blood after being hit by the train,” said Narayan Das, a wildlife ranger.

Soon after the accident, hundreds of locals armed with crude implements arrived at the site and took away the nails, tusk and other body organs of the dead animals.

“When we reached the site, we found body organs of the elephants missing,” Das said.

Experts say that wild elephants have been moving out of the jungles in search of food because people have been encroaching animal corridors. This has led to increasing elephant attacks on villages.

Elephants have killed 270 people in Assam in the past five years. A total of 280 elephants have died in the same period, many of them victims of retaliation by people, according to the wildlife department.

Assam has India’s largest population of Asiatic elephants estimated at around 5,500

Airtel India’s number one GSM mobile service operator has introduced 2 New own net Night Calling plans of its prepaid mobile subscribers in Assam circle.

With the Per Minute Night calling plan Airtel customers can enjoy Night Calls of 20 minutes just at Rs.1 at cost of Rs.25 for 30 days. Calls to other network will be charged as per existing plan.

The operator also introduced Night Call Plan at Rs.15 with 30 days validity for its Pay Per second plan wherein users can make OwnNet Night calls at 1 paisa for 5 seconds pulse. The local call charges while day time and all other network charges in night hours will be applicable as per customers main tariff plan.

Here are the details-:

RC Rs.25 (Validity-30 days) – 11pm- 7am call all local Airtel no @ Re1 for 20 minutes.

RC Rs.15 (Validity-30 days), call all local Airtel no @ 1p/5 sec (11pm-7am) applicable for subscribers who opted per second billing.

source: TelecomTalk

Vodafone Essar has enthralled its GSM customers in Assam circles by launching exciting SMS@1paisa plan for prepaid and post paid subscribers. The new SMS pack is specially tailored to lower the local and national SMS charges. With the new SMS packs Vodafone customers of Assam can enjoy all local and National SMS just at 1 paisa per sms.

To avail the SMS@1 paisa tariff prepaid customers need to recharge with bonus card 14, which comes with tariff validity of 30 Days.

Vodafone Postpaid customers of Assam also enjoy the same SMS tariff by SMS Add-on plan of Rs.14. Pospaid users can activate, the plan just by  sms ‘ACT 14” to 111.

Kaziranga (Assam), Dec 22 (IANS) Two endangered one-horned rhinos were killed by poacher gangs at the famed Kaziranga National Park in Assam, taking the toll of the giant pachyderms slaughtered so far this year to 14, officials said Tuesday.

A wildlife official said the latest killings were reported Monday from inside the sanctuary, 220 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.

“The two rhinos were killed using automatic weapons in separate locations and their horns gouged out. It could be the same poacher gang involved in both the attacks,” a park ranger told IANS.

Both killed were adult rhinos – a male and a female.

“We are indeed worried by the spurt in incidents of rhino poaching inside Kaziranga,” the park official said, requesting anonymity.

Last year, 18 rhinos were killed by poachers, the first time in a decade that the number of rhinos killed in a year in the park touched a double digit figure.

Between 1980 and 1997, some 550 rhinos were killed by poachers in Kaziranga – the highest being 48 in 1992.

As per latest figures, some 1,855 of the world’s estimated 2,700 one-horned rhinos lumber around the wilds of Kaziranga – their concentration here ironically making the giant mammals a favourite target of poachers.

Forest rangers complain about poor infrastructure and obsolete weapons compared to the poachers armed with sophisticated assault rifles.

“First of all the number of forest guards in Kaziranga is far less than what is actually required to protect the wildlife, then you have World War II weapons compared to AK series rifles and carbines used by the poachers,” a senior forest guard working in Kaziranga for more than 15 years, said.

Poachers kill rhinos for their horns, which many believe contain aphrodisiac qualities, besides being used as medicines for curing fever, stomach ailments and other diseases in parts of Asia.

Rhino horn is also much fancied by buyers from the Middle East who turn them into handles of ornamental daggers, while elephant ivory tusks are primarily used for making ornaments and decorative items.

Profits in the illegal rhino horn trade are staggering – rhino horn sells for up to Rs.1.5 million per kilogram in the international market after they are smuggled to China or sold in other clandestine Asian markets.

Once extracted, the rhino horn is routed to agents in places like Dimapur in Nagaland, Imphal in Manipur and Siliguri in West Bengal.

The route for rhino horn smuggling is an interesting one – a possible route is to Kathmandu via Siliguri and then from Nepal to China and the Middle East. The other possible route is from Imphal to Moreh on the Manipur border with Myanmar and then via Myanmar to countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and China.