Villagers in Darjaythang, Sarpang, are still recovering from shock after ten Bodo militants, armed with AK-47 rifles, attacked their neighbour Govind Prashad Pandal’s house on Saturday night.

Darjaythang is about 300 m away from the Indian border.

Govind Prashad was at his home around 12.30 am, when he heard some noises outside his son Rajesh Pandal’s house next door. He peeped through the window and saw ten men in army uniform armed with guns. Terrified, they started shouting. Before they could do anything, the armed men came to their doorsteps and asked them to shut up.

“My grandson switched on the light and by then the militants started kicking at the door. After the fourth kick they broke open the door and forced their way inside,” he said.

They started to ransack the place, fired shots, which nearly hit my daughter-in-law, Govind said. “We shouted for help and, seeing villagers coming, they left. By then, they’d robbed and beaten my son and his wife.”

The armed men had robbed Rajesh Pandal of Nu 4,000, two citizenship and voter identity cards, bankbooks and other household items. Rajesh and his wife were also assaulted with riffle butts. The militants then fired at the Govind’s house and a scooter as they fled.

In the morning, they found bullets scattered at his bedroom door and a goat gone. “One of the men was thin and tall and spoke a strange dialect, similar to lhotsham kha, and that’s how we found that they were Bodo militants,” said Govind.

According to the Sarpang dzongda, Kinzang Wangdi, this was the second incident of armed robbery in the dzongkhag this year. “Such incidents are unpredictable and we’ve reinstituted volunteer patrolling by the villagers every night.”

Earlier, in June, a family in Norbugang, Sarpang, was robbed at gunpoint by armed men. They took away Nu 20,000, six citizenship identity and voter cards, four heads of cattle and silver coins and ornaments. The victims told police that the robbers spoke Hindi and Nepali. However, none of the victims were injured and the robbers left without any trace after the incident.

The royal Bhutan police informed the SSB and the Indian police across the border about the incident, states the police press release.