Assam blasts: Twenty feared dead

GUWAHATI: Twelve bomb blasts in quick succession shook Guwahati and three other Assam towns on Thursday, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 80, police said.

Firefighters doused smouldering remains of cars and motorcycles at one of the blast sites in Guwahati. One of the blasts targeted a high security zone with a court as well as offices and homes of senior police officials.

Most of the blasts were in crowded markets.

Television channels showed some people lying on the streets, their clothes soaked in blood. Some of the walking wounded were helped into ambulances by local people and police.

"So far 20 people have died in 12 blasts," a police officer in the main control room of Guwahati told Reuters.

Assam has been a focus of a separatist insurgency for decades. Last month, it was also hit by clashes between indigenous tribes and Muslim settlers that left at least 47 people dead.

No one has claimed responsibility as yet for the bomb blasts.

"The impact of the blast was so huge, a packed bus got half burnt and we pulled out lot of injured people and sent them to hospital," Pankaj Goswami, a witness at a blast in Guwahati, said.

In Guwahati, crowds angry with the attacks pelted police with stones. Dozens of people were wounded in skirmishes with police. At one place, police fired in the air to disperse an angry mob.

In October, at least two people were killed and 100 injured in four bomb blasts that police blamed on Muslim militant groups based in neighbouring Bangladesh.

But the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), fighting for an independent homeland for the state's more than 26 million people, is often suspected of being behind attacks.

A wave of bomb attacks has hit India in recent months, killing more than 125 people. Police have blamed most of those attacks on Muslim militants, although some suspected Hindu militants have also been arrested.

Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is home to more than 200 tribes and has been racked by separatist revolts since India gained independence from Britain in 1947.