Five injured in grenade blast

Five persons, including a tea garden official, were injured and two vehicles damaged in a grenade blast by suspected NDFB-Songbijit militants at Itakhola in Assam's Sonitpur district along Arunachal Pradesh this evening, police said.
The extremists came in a white car and hurled the grenade at a busy area of the town just 500 metres from the main police station around 6:30 pm.
Sonitpur district Superintendent of police Sanjukta Parasar, who rushed to the blast site, told PTI that the National Democratic Front of Bodoland-S was behind the attack.
Police, quoting eyewitness, said a white colour car had turned into Itakhola centre towards Seijosa and then the grenade exploded when the business community there was busy celebrating Diwali.

The four of the injured have been identified as Diplonga tea garden assistant manager Bijay Singh, Hamed Ali, Baharul Islam and Rajesh Gupta who received splinter injuries, the sources said.
The injured were sent to Dhalaibill Public Health Centre for immediate treatment and businessman Rajesh Gupta, in front of whose shop the blast took place, was sent to Tezpur Kanaklata Civil Hospital.

The grenade damaged the assistant manager's vehicle and another car, they added.
The area has been cordoned off and a search operation launched to trace out the assailants.
The NDFB-S struck the lower Assam districts snatching away rifles from forest guards in two camps inside Manas National Park in Baksa on October 22.

The day before a large group of the insurgents took away seven Insas rifles with ammunition from the Eco-Task Force personnel of the Territorial Army in a forest in Kokrajhar district along the Indo-Bhutan border.