Minor killed in Assam blast amid Assam CM Sarma’s peace moves

A minor was killed in a grenade blast in Assam’s Tinsukia district on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after new chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asked militant outfits to shun violence and join the mainstream.

A senior police official, who did not want to be named, told ET: “The grenade was placed on the roadside and the person … was riding a bicycle when it exploded.” Tinsukia superintendent of police Vaibhav Nimbalkar and a team of policemen have rushed to the spot at Kathakathini in the town of Jagun, he said.

No militant outfit has taken responsibility for the blast.


Sarma, soon after taking oath as Assam’s chief minister, appealed to insurgent outfits including the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) to eschew violence and come to the negotiating table.

“In last five years, peace has returned to Assam. There is a new wave of development. We will work for permanent peace and I appeal to insurgent outfits including Paresh Baruah-led anti-talk ULFA to come to talks as killing and abduction will not solve the problem,” the chief minister said on Monday.

When asked if he was confident that Baruah would listen to his appeal, Sarma has said: “We have invited him to the negotiable table but he must also come.”

Recently the ULFA (Independent) which is also known as the anti-talk ULFA, had kidnapped three employees of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Police have rescued two of them but one is still in the captivity of ULFA.