Seven killed, 55 injured in twin bombings in India

Seven killed, 55 injured in twin bombings in India - Summary

by : dpa

Date : Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:22:18 GMT
New Delhi - At least seven people were killed and 55 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.
"Seven people were killed and 55 injured in the explosions," a senior police official told the IANS news agency.
Authorities said the the state's major separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was behind the attacks. The ULFA denied involvement.
A security alert was sounded in the state following intelligence that a nine-member ULFA squad was planning more bombings in Assam.
Doctors at the hospitals where the injured were being treated said the death toll could rise as 34 people were "seriously wounded" in the attacks.
Most of the victims were shoppers or vendors who had been at a crowded market near the scene of the bombings.
"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 IANS.
"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 witness, Biplab Barman, said.
Police teams cordoned off the blast sites and were trying to determine the nature of the explosives used.
"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.
But later on Sunday, the ULFA denied carrying out the attacks.
"We have not carried out the blasts in Nalbari. It was a conspiracy, an attempt to derail the peace initiatives taken by various civil society groups to push forward the deadlocked peace process between the ULFA and the government," Hira Sarania, an ULFA commander, told the local media by telephone.
Police intensified patrols and security checks. Fearing more blasts, the local administration warned people to stay indoors.
Assam has been relatively peaceful since the last bombing in April that claimed eight lives and was carried out by the ULFA.
The attacks 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.