A bomb exploded near a crowded bus stand in Assam yesterday, killing 6 people hours before the opening of an international athletics meeting, police said.
More than 200 athletes and officials from 19 Asian countries have gathered in Guwahati, the state's main city, to participate in a grand prix organised by the Asian Athletics Association.
The death toll included two minors. One of them was an infant of around 6 months. Another two have been identified as Hanifa Begum (5) and Sanjib Ali (28) while the rest are yet to be identified by the police till the filing of this report.
Local residents, however, have identified the three other dead as Rafiq Ahmed (50), Safiq Ahmed (10) and Hasin Ali (17).
The injured have been identified as Pradip Haloi (40), Qurban Ali (18), Mujiboor Ali (22), Anwar Hussain (42), Mafijul Rahman (4), Imanul Hussain (30), Ghiyasuddin Ali (39), Maina Khatun (7) and Ashok Kumar Shah (28).
"The victims were mostly vegetable vendors and traders. We are yet to identify the four dead bodies," a senior police officer said. He said the latest bomb was hidden among vegetable baskets near a crowded bus stand, where farmers from nearby villages arrive every morning to sell their produce.
"The bomb was probably strapped to a bicycle and kept near the entrance of the market. The dead include an infant about six to seven months old," Rajen Singh, additional police chief of Guwahati city, said.
"The condition of at least four of the injured is critical with the victims receiving multiple wounds in their chest, face and abdomen," a doctor at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital said.
The separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) - fighting for independence for the oil- and tea-rich state of 26mn people - is suspected to be behind the blast. However the ULFA has claimed it was not involved in a bomb blast at the busy Machkhowa area that killed six persons. In a statement e-mailed to the media here, ULFA spokesman Maj Raju Barua said the group was in no way involved in the blast that killed "innocent people".
The ULFA had threatened to disrupt the National Games, India's leading sporting event, held in the state in February. Though the outfit has issued no specific threat against the Asian meet, it says such events are organised by New Delhi to reinforce its claim that Assam is an integral part of India.
In the past three months, the ULFA has carried out at least 24 bomb explosions in Assam killing about 20 people and wounding many more. The ULFA was also blamed for a string of attacks in January that killed about 80 people, 61 of them Hindi-speaking migrant workers. Separatist violence has killed more than 20,000 people in Assam since 1979.
Mustafa Ali Akbar
KC
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