Guwahati, Nov. 8 :    Guwahati, Nov. 8:  Blood continued to flow in the killing fields of Assam, with militants gunning down eight persons, including a one-year-old baby, in a pre-dawn raid on Sukrunbari village near Sarbhog in Barpeta district. An unconfirmed report reaching here said suspected Dimasa rebels killed a couple, both employees of a government-run corporation, in another incident in North Cachar Hills district this evening. Officials in the district headquarters town of Haflong could not be contacted over phone due to 'a technical snag'. The police top brass could not be contacted either as they are camping in Sivsagar. The massacre in Sukrunbari, suspected to have been carried out by the National Democratic Front of Boroland, was the fourth in 18 days. It raised the toll in the bloodbath since October 22 to 38. Of the eight victims, including a minor girl and a woman, five were from a minority community, two from Bihar and one an Assamese. Barpeta deputy commissioner Swapnanil Baruah told The Telegraph over phone from the Lower Assam town that a group of 10-12 NDFB militants combed Sukrunbari for members of the rival Bodo Liberation Tigers. On finding none, the militants vent their anger on the villagers - first lining them up in a field in front of a rice mill and then pumping bullets into them from close range. Seven were killed on the spot, but four lived to tell the tale. 'They asked us to come out of our homes and even assured us that they were 'government people' and there was nothing to worry about,' 10-year-old Md Jahatuddin said from his bed at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital. Baruah quoted other eyewitnesses as saying that the militants were masked and came to the village on foot. Since there is no motorable road leading to the Sukrunbari, located about 12 km from the Indo-Bhutan border, a police team from Sorbhog had to trek over six km after crossing the Beki river to reach the village. Sukrunbari has a mixed population of Bodo, Assamese and minority migrants. Based on the contents of an intercepted Ulfa radio message, additional director-general of police G.M. Srivastava had said last week that Barpeta could be the militants' 'next target'. The deputy commissioner today confirmed receiving such a warning. 'We did anticipate violence in Sorbhog and Barpeta Road,' he said. However, Baruah said it was 'impossible to post police pickets in every village'. He said security forces had launched a manhunt for the killers. Though the police suspect the NDFB hand behind today's massacre, no outfit claimed responsibility for the incident till late tonight. An obscure outfit, christened the 'Assam Tiger Force', had emerged on the scene after the Nalbari killings and owned up to the massacres in Naoholia, Doomdooma and Nalbari. However, the police ruled out the existence of any such outfit and accused the Ulfa of conjuring up the name to divert the state's attention. Fifteen people were killed in Naoholia and Doomdooma on October 22, while 10 were gunned down in the heart of Nalbari town on October 27. All the victims were non-Assamese. Police officials said the Ulfa was targeting non-Assamese people to please its 'foreign master', the ISI. The ruling Asom Gana Parishad blamed the 'Ulfa-Congress combine' of carrying out the massacres. The PCC countered the allegation by saying that one of the persons arrested in connection with the Nalbari massacre was an AGP activist, something that 'proved' the ruling party's complicity in the crime.