The United Liberation Front of Assam on Wednesday gunned down three Hindi-speaking persons in Assam's Golaghat district, taking the total number of such persons killed by the banned group since Tuesday to nine.
In attacks reminiscent of its orgy of violence in January against Hindi-speaking persons that left 70 dead, two militants riding a motorcycle shot dead grocer Tankeswar Sahu and another man named Dipak Agarwal at Diksoi Tinaili in Dergaon evening.
Another grocer, Srinath Agarwal, was killed at Ghiladhari under Merapani police station of the same district between 7 pm and 7.15 pm, police said.
The ULFA killed six Hindi-speaking persons in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, the group had warned that it will award 'capital punishment' to people involved in attacking demonstrators who blocked a highway to protest the killing by the army of a man mistaken to be a member of the ULFA.
Jiten Dutta, the self-styled commander of ULFA's strike force 28 battalion's 'Charlie company' told media on phone that the group had identified the people behind Sunday's attacks in which five persons were killed and several injured at different places in Doomdooma revenue circle.
The ULFA, Dutta said, would award 'capital punishment' to the identified people. He also accused the Assam government of attacking people leading a 'democratic movement against the killing of an innocent man' and of 'destroying the traditional bond between local people and the tea tribe community.'
On Sunday, tea garden workers, angered by the disruption in the supply of rations due to the blocking of National Highway 37, attacked thousands of demonstrators who were protesting the killing of Budheswar Moran by the army, which mistook him for an ULFA militant.
