Militant Attack Kills Seven in Assam NEW DELHI - At least seven members of the Rabha tribe were gunned down during Diwali celebrations in the northeastern state of Assam, killed by militants from a rival tribe, the state police said Monday. On Sunday night, about half a dozen militants from the Garo National Liberation Army, all carrying automatic rifles, entered the village of Gandebari in Assam, said Ajit Prasad Raut, a senior police officer from Guwahati, Assam's capital. Gandebari is in Goalpara district of Assam, which is near the state border with Meghalaya, where the Garo tribe has had clashes with the Rabhas in the past. "They saw a group of Rabha tribals sitting in front of two village tea stalls and started indiscriminately firing," he said. Within minutes, the gunmen killed seven people, all men from the Rabha tribe, and injured nine others. The militants then walked away toward Meghalaya state, Mr. Raut said. The Garo National Liberation Army is based in the Garo Hills region in western Meghalaya. "The militants might have driven on a dusty track for one and half hours from the Meghalaya border and then walked one mile to kill the Rabhas," Mr. Raut said. Though the Garo and Rabha tribes have battled each other in the past, like in early 2011, when several members of both tribes were killed and 30,000 people were displaced, such clashes had tapered off in recent years. "Now they were opposing each other through more democratic means, and we were not expecting any violence," said Mr. Raut. Tensions between the two tribes have increased as the Goalpara district prepares for the first elections of the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council later this month. The council was formed in 1995, but elections have yet to take place. The council has been run by a body appointed by the Assam state government. The autonomous council's jurisdiction includes villages inhabited by the Garos and other ethnic groups, and the Garos fear that the Rabhas will become more powerful after the elections. Rabhas make up the majority in the Goalpara district of Assam, but they are in the minority in the neighboring state of Meghalaya. To press for their political and economic demands, Rabhas have resorted to road blockades and strikes in Goalpara, disrupting the traffic to the Garo villages across the border in Meghalaya and increasing the Garo tribe's resentment.