New Delhi - Two people were killed and 30 injured in a powerful explosion inside a passenger train in India's north-eastern Assam state on Tuesday, police said. The blast occurred in a carriage of an intercity train that was stationary at the Diphu railway station, about 300 kilometres east of Assam's main city of Guwahati, an official at the Guwahati police control room said.
The train was travelling from Guwahati to Tinsukia in eastern Assam. Police said at least six people were critically injured.
A powerful bomb was placed in a carriage and set off by a timer device, a senior police official was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.
"We are yet to ascertain who could be behind the explosion," the police official said.
Assam saw a series of deadly blasts on October 30 in which at least 80 people were killed and 300 injured.
The police suspect that the banned Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the majority Karbi tribe in the area where the blast took place, could be behind Tuesday's train bombing.
The group had called for an economic blockade in the region on Tuesday to pressure the government to hold peace talks.
The KNLF has links with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, which has been fighting for a sovereign Assam.
The north-east region is home to more than 200 ethnic groups and has been plagued by insurgency throughout the last half century.
An estimated 50 militant groups operate in the north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya.
