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| 8 killed, 60 injured in Assam blasts |
| Supratim Dey / Guwahati Apr 07, 2009, 01:17 IST |
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Improvised Explosive Device was used in both the blasts.
At least eight people were killed and 60 injured today when three successive blasts triggered by suspected Ulfa militants rocked Guwahati and Dhekiajuli, a day ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the state.
The first blast took place in Guwahati’s busy Maligaon area at around 1.45 pm and killed eight people, including a woman and a child. Fifty people were injured. The second explosion occurred just hours later in Dhekiajuli, near Tezpur, some 150 km from Guwahati. According to local television reports, no one was killed in the Dhekiajuli blast, though four persons were injured, one critically.
This apart, a low-intensity explosion was reported from the trouble-torn Karbi Anglong district in central Assam.
According to preliminary reports, improvised explosive device (IED) was used in both the blasts. Whereas the IED was kept in a motorcycle in Guwahati, it was kept in a bicycle in Dhekiajuli.
The intensity of the Guwahati blast was so much that it led to a fire in the area and many vehicles were charred and mangled due to the ensuing fire. Witnesses said there were incidents of stone pelting at the police by angry people following the blast in Guwahati.
The blasts also come a day ahead of the banned outfit Ulfa’s ‘Raising Day’.
“We suspect the role of Ulfa behind the blasts as we received intelligence inputs that the outfit would try to strike in the run up to its ‘Raising Day’ and forthcoming elections. We seized large quantities of arms and ammunition from many parts of the state in the last few days but unfortunately this might have slipped out of our hands,” said a top police official, referring to the Guwahati blast.
Assam has been bleeding for the past many years due to unabated incidents of terror attacks. The state was greeted with serial blasts on the very first day of this year. Last week, Also, Pranab Mukherjee, External Affairs Minister and P Chidambaram, union Home Minister, were greeted by blasts a day before their last respective visits to Guwahati.
Though the Prime Minister’s visit to Dibrugarh would go ahead as per schedule tomorrow, his visit to Karbi Anglong, which too witnessed a low intensity blast today, was already cancelled due to poor security situation in the area following a 36-hour bandh called by militant outfit, Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KNLF).
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