Ulfa has been fighting Indian forces for two decades

Shops, businesses and schools are closed and there are few vehicles on the roads.

The United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) has called the strike to protest against the death of their founder, Robin Handique, in jail last week.

It comes a day after Ulfa said it was ready to hold peace talks with the Indian government.

Robin Handique, 68, died in a jail in the town of Tezpur.

He had spent time in several jails since his arrest in Bhutan in December 2003, after which he was handed over to the Indian authorities.

Ulfa alleges that Handique was poisoned to death, a charge denied by Assam government officials.

Talks

On Wednesday, an Ulfa mediator said the group had given a concrete proposal to India's federal government to hold talks.

Leading Assamese writer Indira Goswami told the BBC the Indian government had accepted the proposal and expressed a keen interest to hold talks in the first week of October.

There has been no confirmation of this by government.

She said that Ulfa would send a 10-member team to hold talks with Delhi, comprising of leading writers, newspaper editors as well as people from various other professions.

ULFA rejected an offer of peace talks last December, after the government asked them to renounce violence before any dialogue.

The rebel groups said they could not accept any "conditional dialogue".