January 19, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 28, 1427

GUWAHATI: A separatist group in India's insurgency-hit northeast, blamed for killing scores of Hindi-speaking people, warned migrant workers on Thursday to quit the region and threatened to step up violence.

The powerful rebel outfit, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), also rejected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's renewed offer of talks.

“We have appealed to the Hindi-speaking people that the conflict running in Assam is with colonial India, so go away as soon as possible ...(and) stay away,” ULFA said in its newsletter, Freedom.

Authorities blamed the outlawed ULFA for a four-day wave of attacks in oil- and tea-rich Assam state that ended on Monday, in which 73 people were killed -- 61 of them Hindi-speaking migrant workers.

The group denied responsibility for the massacre and blamed federal security forces, accusing New Delhi of seeking to “tarnish the image” of the rebels.

ULFA, which is fighting for a separate Assamese homeland, would never seek its goal “by gambling with the lives of innocent people”, the group said.

This month's massacre was preceded by an ULFA warning to Hindi-speakers to leave Assam, claiming the migrant workers were taking away jobs.

In the most recent violence in the far-flung state on Wednesday, at least 12 people were injured when blasts, blamed by police on ULFA, rocked Assam.

ULFA spurned Singh's fresh offer of talks on Tuesday “to all disaffected groups, including ULFA, who are willing to abjure violence”.—AFP