Thimpu, July 22 (Inditop.com) Dressed in India’s Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) fatigues and armed with AK-47 rifles, about 40 militants looted a house in Bhutan’s Sarpang district, the second such incident in the area in three weeks. The attacks, which have spread fear among the people, are being attributed to the separatist Bodo militant group from the Indian state of Assam.
The second incident July 18 took place in an area that falls between an SSB camp and a Royal Bhutan Police camp, which are within 300 metres of each other, according to a report by the Bhutan Today News Service.
This belies the statement made by the Bhutan prime ministerial team that visited India last week and asserted that there were no Bodo or ULFA militants in southern Bhutan. The attacks have raised fears of a resurgence of militant activity in Bhutan, a most sensitive issue vis-୶is India’s security concerns.
The armed men attacked a house in Toribari in Sarpang, just 21 days after a house in the neighbourhood was robbed of Nu 20,000.
About 10 men entered the house of Rajesh Pandal at about 12.30 a.m. last Saturday and looted Nu 4,000 in cash and a gold ornament worth Nu 6,000. The other armed men guarded the house.
They also took with them two blankets, three students’ bags and a goat from resident Lal Bahadur Shangdan. Other important documents looted were an ID card and a bank book of the family.
Rajesh Pandal’s grandmother narrowly escaped a gunfire shot at her when she tried to shout for help. She was shouting from the window in the upper floor of the two-storied house, Rajesh Pandal said.
“As soon as she cried ‘thief thief’, the militants shouted ‘maro maro’ (kill, kill) and shot at her at the window, but I immediately pulled her away and thus she was saved,” said Govinda Pandal, the father of Rajesh.
Eight of the militants who entered the house carried AK-47 rifles and two others brandished country-made guns. The lights in the house were on and they were easily visible. “But the shadows cast by the SSB caps they wore made it difficult to make out their faces,” Rajesh Pandal said.
Rajesh Pandal and his wife were mercilessly beaten with gun butts and kicked by the militants throughout the half an hour of the attack. They left at about 1 a.m. The house of the victims is located about 40 metres from the Gelephu-Sarpang Highway, just about 300 metres from the Indo-Bhutan border in the south.
According to a press release from the Royal Bhutan Police, the armed men were supposedly members of the Bodo group from Assam.
Meanwhile, people of the district said they were feeling an increased security risk due to the attacks. “It has become very risky to live in these areas,” a resident said.
He said a security outpost should be established in Toribari, where the incidents had occurred.
