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NEW DELHI, Jan 13 (AFP) - Suspected tribal militants gunned down 12 shoppers Sunday at a busy marketplace in the northeast Indian state of Tripura, the Press Trust of India said.

Two armed squads of the rebels had swooped down on a weekly market in the border state's Singicherra district and opened random fire with automatic weapons, police said.

Twelve shoppers, including children, were killed and 13 others wounded, a police spokesman said from the Tripura state capital of Agartala.

The victims were mostly villagers, the spokesman said. Ten of the wounded were in hospital in a critical condition.

Police blamed the daylight attack on guerrillas from the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), but the group had not accepted responsibility, a spokesman said.

Thousands of people have been killed in unrest in Tripura where tribal groups such as the NLFT are waging a drive against an influx of Muslim settlers from adjoining Bangladesh since the Islamic nation's creation in 1971. 

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