21.   They were kidnapped on Monday from Pakkakahl forest in Bagaichari area of Rangamati hill district.

22.   They were demanding the creation of a separate state comprising eight hill districts in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

23.   Three people were killed in two separate explosions in the southeastern hill district and near the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, newspapers here reported Wednesday.

24.   They blamed the insurgent Shanti Bahini rebels for the ambush on a group of seven policemen arriving for a routine patrol in a hill district bordering India and Burma.

25.   Police clashed with supporters of Uttarakhand in several towns in the hill districts on Monday, PTI said.

26.   Residents of the hill districts claim they have long been ignored by successive governments of Uttar Pradesh and want their own state, to be called Uttarakhand.

27.   Security forces, who recovered the bodies of the woodcutters Wednesday in the Rangamati hill district, have blamed the killings on tribal Shanti Bahini insurgents.

28.   The Buddhist insurgents have been demanding autonomy in the three hill districts and expulsion of Bengali-speaking Moslem settlers from the region.

29.   The authorities immediately placed a curfew on five towns in the eight Uttar Pradesh hill districts, the news agency said.

30.   The floods caused rivers and canals to overflow their banks and cut road communication between southeastern Khagrachari and Rangamati hill districts.