India seals Bhutan border

Even as the Indian Army intensified its counter-insurgency operations against the National Democratic Front of Boroland (Songbijit), the exodus of panic-stricken Bodo and Adivasi people continued unabated.
Government sources in New Delhi said that the border with Bhutan — where NDFB(S) is believed to have bases — has been sealed.
In five attacks within the space of an hour, Bodo militants dressed in military uniforms dragged out men, women and children from their homes and shot them. 41 were killed in Sonitpur and 42 in Kokrajhar.
An indefinite curfew continues in Kokrajhar and its neighboring areas. Police have blamed the attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has waged a violent decades-long campaign for an independent homeland for the Bodo.
So far over a lakh people have fled their villages. Assam's Kokrajhar district's Deputy Commissioner Thaneswar Malakar told The Hindu that 74,912 people had taken                shelter in 77 relief camps in the district. In Chirang district, 14,920 refugees had taken shelter in 11 relief camps, 9,650 people were in nine relief camps in Sonitpur district and 8,105 people were in five relief camps in Udalguri.
India on Friday urged Bhutan and other neighbours including Bangladesh to help track down the separatist rebels.
Some militants are believed to have fled to Bhutan while their leader was believed to be in Myanmar, officials and police said, prompting calls for cooperation.
Indo-Bhutan border guarding force, SSB has rushed 2,000 of its personnel to Assam in the wake of the mass killings and escalation in violence by the militants of banned outfit NDFB(S).
“We have sent 20 fresh companies to these areas. They have reported at the base in Assam and we are trying to enhance and better the border guarding task along this area,” Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Chief B D Sharma said here on Friday.
He said the paramilitary force already has nine battalions for border guarding duties along the Indo—Bhutan border in Assam and these fresh units would supplement the existing personnel.