news details |
|
|
| Assam blasts: 5 killed, 30 injured | | | Agencies
Guwahati, Jan 01: At least five people were killed and 30 others were injured as serial bomb blasts rocked Assam's capital Guwahati on Thursday, the first day of 2009, hours ahead of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's visit to review the security situation in the state.
Reportedly, the first blast occurred in a crowded market at Birubari, the second blast at Bhootnath area in the city, which falls on the route Chidambaram was supposed to take, in which six people were injured. The third blast occurred at Bhangarh area. The blasts occurred within three-four hours this afternoon.
Confirming the hand of ULFA, state DGP G M Srivastava told reporters: “I am confirming that ULFA is behind these blasts. We have specific intelligence inputs of it.”
“These are minor blasts. The nature of the explosives is not immediately known although it appears to be some improvised explosive device,” he added.
The DGP confirmed the death of one person and added that 16 others were injured in the incident, four of which were in a critical condition.
Three persons were injured in a blast outside a Big Bazar retail chain outlet at Bhangagarh, an upmarket commercial area near Guwahati Medical College.
Earlier, an Improvised Explosive Devise (IED) kept in a municipal corporation dustbin went off at around 3.30 pm leaving three persons wounded. The dustbin was kept near ATB hospital.
The injured admitted to the hospital were identified as Altaf Ali, Fatema Begum and Raul Ali, official sources said.
Among the dead were two men--Amal Das and Kahil Sheikh-- who were killed in the third of the blasts in upmarket Bhangagarh area on the busy Guwahati-Shillong Road. 20 people were injured in this blast of which four were women.
The state witnessed serial blasts on October 30, 2008, in which 88 people were killed.
The blasts have occurred at a time when Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is on a two-day visit to Assam to review the counter-insurgency situation and the prevailing law-and-order situation at a meeting of the Unified Command on Friday.
Chidambaram has already arrived in the city and is expected to take stock of the situation arising out of the blasts.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to arrive in the city tomorrow before leaving for Shillong on January 3 to would inaugurate the Indian Science Congress.
An official of the Home Ministry, who is accompanying Chidambaram put the number of injured at 31.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
