56 dead, 350 injured as 13 blasts rock Assam
A serial bomb blast killed at least 56 people and left approximately 350 injured in Assam.
GUWAHATI: Terror struck the hub of North-East when over a dozen blasts ripped through commercial areas of the capital and three other district at Ganeshguri in Guwahati, Assam.
The first of the 13 bombs, suspected to have been planted by Bangladesh-based HuJI members, went off simultaneously around 11.30 am under the Ganeshguri flyover, near the high-security capital complex housing the Assembly building, Paltan Bazar and Fancy Bazar here.
Around the same time, bombs also went off in crowded market places of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta districts in lower Assam.
Black smoke billowed from the Deputy Commissioner's Office housing the district courts, which bore the brunt of the attacks in Guwahati, as vehicles, including a number of cars, turned into mangled heaps of metal.
Police suspected that the bomb was planted in the court complex on a two-wheeler.
At least 25 people were killed and 235 injured in the blasts in Guwahati where an indefinite curfew was clamped following protests by residents, who accused the police of delayed action.
While 19 were killed and 64 injured in Kokrajhar, 12 died in Barpeta and 46 others were wounded. Five people were injured in Bongaigaon, Principal Secretary (Home) Subhash Das said.
A red alert has been sounded across the state and army has also been put on alert in view of the security situation, he said after Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi held a review meeting with his cabinet colleagues and top officials.
The Assam government on Thursday said the banned ULFA may have perpetrated the serial blasts in the state but it was too early to reach a conclusion.
"It is very early to make a conclusion but ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters minutes after the explosions.
Sarma said the objective of the triggering the blasts in the crowded places was to claim more lives.
"Most of the bombs were planted in crowded places like markets and office complexes. So it shows that the perpetrators wanted high casualty," he said.
The first of the 13 bombs, suspected to have been planted by Bangladesh-based HuJI members, went off simultaneously around 11.30 am under the Ganeshguri flyover, near the high-security capital complex housing the Assembly building, Paltan Bazar and Fancy Bazar here.
Around the same time, bombs also went off in crowded market places of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta districts in lower Assam.
Black smoke billowed from the Deputy Commissioner's Office housing the district courts, which bore the brunt of the attacks in Guwahati, as vehicles, including a number of cars, turned into mangled heaps of metal.
Police suspected that the bomb was planted in the court complex on a two-wheeler.
At least 25 people were killed and 235 injured in the blasts in Guwahati where an indefinite curfew was clamped following protests by residents, who accused the police of delayed action.
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While 19 were killed and 64 injured in Kokrajhar, 12 died in Barpeta and 46 others were wounded. Five people were injured in Bongaigaon, Principal Secretary (Home) Subhash Das said.
A red alert has been sounded across the state and army has also been put on alert in view of the security situation, he said after Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi held a review meeting with his cabinet colleagues and top officials.
The Assam government on Thursday said the banned ULFA may have perpetrated the serial blasts in the state but it was too early to reach a conclusion.
"It is very early to make a conclusion but ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters minutes after the explosions.
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Sarma said the objective of the triggering the blasts in the crowded places was to claim more lives.
"Most of the bombs were planted in crowded places like markets and office complexes. So it shows that the perpetrators wanted high casualty," he said.
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