Five killed in blast in India's northeast

GUWAHATI: Five people were killed, including a baby, and 12 more wounded Saturday in a powerful explosion at a crowded city marketplace in India's restive northeastern state of Assam. The blast took place shortly before 8:00 am (0230 GMT) at a busy vegetable market in Assam's main city of Guwahati, a police official said. "The blast was of a very high magnitude, killing five people on the spot.

The dead include an infant of about six to seven months old," Rajen Singh, additional police chief of Guwahati city, told AFP. "The bomb was probably strapped to a bicycle and kept near the approach of the market." At least 12 people were also injured in the explosion, most of them either shoppers or vendors.

"The condition of at least four of the injured are critical with the victims receiving multiple wounds in their chest, face and abdomen," said a doctor at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital, where the injured were taken. Police said it was likely the blast had been carried out by the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for more than three decades.

The ULFA was also blamed for a string of ethnic attacks in January that killed 80 people in eastern Assam. More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades.