FRONT PAGE | Monday, November 23, 2009 | Email | Print | 
7 killed, 55 hurt in Assam blasts
Sanat K Chakraborty | Guwahati
At least seven people were killed and 55 wounded in twin explosions in Nalbari district of lower Assam, about 70 km northwest of Guwahati, on Sunday morning.
The police suspect ULFA’s role behind this ghastly acts, claiming that they had information of an ULFA group sneaking into India to carry out such subversive attacks in the run-up to its ‘protest day’ on November 27. The ULFA generally observes November 27 as the ‘protest day’, as the organisation was declared as ‘outlaw’ on that day.
In fact, the police had named a group of nine ULFA men on terror mission in Assam and posted their photographs as most wanted, in its website. The attacks came within a week after the ULFA had triggered a huge explosion on a train carrying high-speed diesel tankers at Changpool in the Golaghat district, causing massive fire and destruction.
The outfit, however, denied its involvement in the Nalbari town bomb blasts. A caller, identifying himself as ULFA’s 709 battalion commander Hira Sarania, told a local channel that it had no hands in the bomb attacks, and instead, accused the Government of hatching a conspiracy to malign the outfit’s image and discredit its efforts for peace.
The police said the explosives were planted on bicycles that were parked on the roadside within 20 feet distance between them, close to the
Nalbari police station. The first bomb went off around 9.45 in the morning but failed to cause much damage. However, as the passers-by rushed towards the blast site and crowd gathered around the place, the second bomb exploded some 10/15 minutes later, killing four persons on the spot and injuring scores of others.
The dead were identified as Dipu Das, Keshab Das, Ganesh Das and Pawan Thakur. Later, two more persons - Muhammad Ali and J Sikdar - succumbed to their injuries.
They injured ones - several of them with grave wounds from flying shrapnel - were rushed to district civil hospital as well as the Guwahati Medical College Hospital. Hospital sources fear the death toll may go up, as the conditions of some of the injured were critical.
Panic-struck people ran helter-skelter, crying out for help to take the maimed persons lying on the ground. They alleged that despite being close to the police station, the security personnel were found nowhere near the site.
“Mercifully, there were less people on the road as it was Sunday today, otherwise, the casualty would have been very high,” said a eyewitness there.
Meanwhile, the State Government sounded a high alert across the State, apprehending similar strikes by the rogue outfit. All the political parties, irrespective of the party line, strongly condemned the attacks. Influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) also called for a 12-hour bandh in the area in protest against the terror attack.
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