Engineer shot dead outside office in Haflong

Guwahati:  Suspected ultras gunned down an executive engineer of Irrigation Department of Assam on Friday outside his office at Haflong, the district headquarter town of Dima Hasao hill district in Assam.
Police informed that two persons coming in an autorickshaw called out the executive engineer Rajiv Kumar Pathak from his office and shot him dead on the road after a brief discussion.
The assailants then fled the scene in the same autorickshaw towards the crowded Haflong market.
Police quoting information provided to police by the autorickshaw driver, said the assailants sounded like Nagas from their conversation and they got down from the vehicle in the crowded market of Haflong town after committing the crime.
Police has launched a manhunt to nab the culprits.
The Dima Hasao hill district has been a hotbed of insurgents since 1990s. However, there has seen a period of lull in the hill district of late in the wake of two factions of the militant Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) – DHD (Nunisa) and DHD (Jewel Garlosa) – coming over ground and started dialogue with the Government of India.
However, NSCN rebels from different factions from neighbouring Nagaland are active in the hill district.
Two other insurgent groups, a DHD faction led by one Action Dimasa and newly-formed United Dimasa Kachari Liberation Front (UDKLF) are also active.
The NSCN rebels have been trouble makers in the hill district because of rampant extortions and abductions resorted to by them though they are in truce with Government of India and  supposed to abide by ceasefire ground rules.
It was the NSCN rebels which initially promoted Dimasa tribe insurgent groups in the hill district.
Now, with influential Dimasa tribe militants entering into peace process with the  government of India, the Naga rebels have started creating trouble in the hill district.