By IANS
Guwahati : At least one person was killed and five injured in a powerful explosion Tuesday at a crowded marketplace in Assam, the latest in a wave of attacks by separatist militants, officials said.
A police spokesman said the blast took place at a busy market area in Doomdooma town, 560 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“The bomb was concealed in a sack and kept on a parked rickshaw. One person died on the spot. All the victims were either shoppers or vendors,” police official B. Baruah said on phone.
The injured were shifted to a local hospital with multiple wounds.
Police blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) for the blast.
The ULFA in the past week has staged at least eight explosions killing two people and wounding 40. The attacks are seen as an attempt by the ULFA to make its presence felt ahead of the outfit’s ‘army day celebrations’ March 16.
“These are acts of desperation,” Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
On Sunday, ULFA militants shot dead three Hindi-speaking brick kiln workers in the eastern Dibrugarh district triggering fear and panic among the migrant workers.
“Security in areas surrounding brick kilns have been tightened,” a senior police official said.
The ULFA is fighting for an independent homeland since 1979.