56 killed, 350 injured in serial blasts in Assam

Guwahati, Oct 30 (PTI) Terror struck the hub of North-East when over a dozen blasts Thursday ripped through commercial areas of the capital and three other districts, killing 56 people and injuring 350 others.

The first of the 13 bombs, suspected to have been
planted by Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami
(H.u.J.I.) members, went off simultaneously at around 11.30 AM
IST 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 where 46 others were wounded. Five people were
injured in Bongaigaon, Principal Secretary (Home) Subhash Das
told P.T.I.

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.

Police suspect the involvement of Bangladesh-based
Harkat-ul Jehad-e-Islami (H.u.J.I.) in the attacks, the worst
in the insurgency-prone state, though the hand of other
extremist groups is not ruled out.

The banned U.L.F.A., often blamed for such attacks,
has denied any role in Thursday's blasts, which have come on
top of serial explosions in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and
Delhi.

While six blasts rocked Guwahati, three explosions
each took place in Kokrajhar and Barpeta and one in
Bongaigaon.

Angry mobs in Guwahati went on a rampage, attacking
and torching police vehicles, fire tenders and buses and
pelted stones on police barricades at the blast sites.

A group of people shouting slogans against the
government carried a body in a handcart to the gate of the
Secretariat complex here.

A rattled Chief Minister vowed to deal firmly with the
situation. It is the handiwork of anti-national extremist
forces, Gogoi said in a statement.

The injured were admitted here to the Gauhati Medical
College hospital where blast victims from other districts were
also arriving for treatment.

Kamrup (Metro) Deputy Commissioner Prateek Hajela said
he suspected the hand of H.u.J.I. in the serial blasts.

In Guwahati, two bombs exploded in Ganeshguri-Dispur
near the capital complex, another in the compound of Kamrup
district deputy commissioner's office, the third at Paltan
Bazar and fourth in Fancy Bazar, Das said.

An oil tanker there caught fire following the
explosion in Ganeshguri.

People were running helter-skelter and many were
lying on the ground as total chaos prevailed at the blast site
a short distance from the Secretariat at Dispur.

The blast sites wore a gory look with mutilated and
charred bodies and human flesh strewn all over the
blood-splattered roads. Parked vehicles bore a mute testimony
to the carnage, with many reduced to smouldering metal and
several others with splinter marks. PTI ESB