Eleven Border Security Force soldiers were also injured in the attack on a bus in Kokrajhar near Gauhati. –Photo by AFP

GAUHATI: Police in northeast India say suspected rebels fired indiscriminately on a bus carrying Indian paramilitary soldiers and killed eight of them.

Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, an inspector general of police, said the insurgents fled in the dark after the attack Monday night. It happened in a remote forest area in Kokrajhar district, nearly 155 miles of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state.

Mahanta told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 11 Border Security Force soldiers were hospitalized with injuries from the attack.

More than 30 groups in India's northeast have been fighting for decades for independence or wide autonomy in the region, about 1,000 miles east of New Delhi.