New Delhi - At least six people were killed and 54 injured Sunday in two bombings by suspected separatist rebels in India's north-eastern state of Assam, officials and news reports said. The bombs exploded near a police station in the Nalbari town, some 70 kilometres west of the state capital, Guwahati. They were planted on bicycles parked 50 metres away.
Nalbari police chief Jitmol Doley told the PTI news agency the blasts were carried out by the state's major separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
Assam police, who earlier said there were three explosions, confirmed there were only two blasts.
Four men were killed on the scene while two died on way to hospital, the reports said. The death toll could rise as 34 people were seriously injured in the attacks.
Most of the victims were shoppers or vendors as there was a market teeming with people close to the blast sites. News channels showed locals moving the injured into ambulances amid small fires and damage to vehicles caused by the blasts.
"It was total panic and chaos with human limbs strewn all over the place and blood splattered on the road," Ankur Das, a witness, told the IANS news agency.
"The sound of the first blast was deafening. The second explosion took place in front of our eyes. Many people who came rushing to the site of the first explosion got injured in the second blast," another local Biplab Barman said.
Police teams had cordoned off the blast sites that have a number of shops and were probing the nature of explosives used in the bombings.
"We condemn this most heinous act committed by the ULFA. It is undoubtedly a cowardly act of the ULFA," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
"We have got information that they have been trying to perpetrate such attacks all over Assam and we have alerted our police," he told reporters.
Following the bombings, locals took to the streets and shouted slogans against the ULFA.
Police intensified patrols and canducted security checks. Fearing more blasts, the local administration warned people to stay indoors.
Assam has been relatively peaceful since the last bombing by ULFA in April claimed eight lives.
The explosions are seen as a retaliatory strike by the outlawed group after two of its senior leaders were arrested earlier this month in neighbouring Bangladesh and handed over to Indian authorities.
Nalbari is a hotbed of ULFA activities and headquarters of its "strike battalion". The group has been fighting for an independent homeland since 1979.
India's north-east, which shares borders with China, Myanmar and Bangladesh, is a volatile region where nearly 40 separatist, tribal or leftist armed groups are active in five states.
More than 15,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in the region in the past decade.
