Nagaon, Feb. 24: Suspected Karbi militants gunned down two Hindi-speaking men in a village under Bokoliaghat police station, 50km from district headquarters Diphu this morning.

Karbi Anglong police said the militants had attacked Biswanath Chauhan, 50, and Radheshyam Chauhan, 45, while they were standing in the backyard of a house around 5.30am.

The victims and nine others from Kaki in neighbouring Nagaon district had gone to their relative’s residence at Bokoliaghat Rangnagar.

“Biswanath and Radheshyam were in the backyard of the house when militants numbering about seven to eight, attacked them. On hearing gunshots, villagers came out and found the two felled by the militants’ bullets,” a police officer said.

Biswanath died where he fell. Radheshyam, whose condition was critical, died on way to Nagaon.

The police suspect the Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF) militants were behind the killings. “We are trying to track them down,” the additional superintendent of police (headquarters), Nityananda Goswami, said.

Bokoliaghat is inhabited mostly by Hindi-speaking villagers.

The Hindi Bhashi Chatra Santha has called a 12-hour Karbi Anglong bandh on Tuesday in protest against the killings.

The KLNLF killed 27 Hindi-speaking people and torched hundreds of houses in a series of attacks in August last year. “Only a couple of months back people who had fled the area following rebels’ attacks, returned home,” the officer said.