By IANS
Guwahati/Agartala : A paramilitary trooper was killed and another wounded in an ambush by separatists in Tripura while a string of explosions rocked Assam on Independence Day Wednesday, officials said.
A police spokesman said militants of the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) attacked a patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Ganganagar, 115 km north of the state capital Agartala.
“The CRPF team was guarding a highway when militants fired at them killing one and injuring another seriously,” a police official said.
The NLFT had called for a boycott of Independence Day celebrations and observed a six-hour general strike.
In Assam, there were four explosions around 9 a.m.
Two blasts took place in the heart of Gauripur town in Dhubri district, about 280 km west of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“Both were crude bombs and planted near a pond. There were no people around the area when the explosions took place,” police official S. Rabha said over telephone from Gauripur.
There were two more blasts in Bongaigaon town, about 220 km west of here, minutes after Education Minister Ripun Bora unfurled the national flag. The blast site was, however, not very close to the Independence Day parade ground.
“Both the bombs were planted beneath the ground. There were no casualties,” a police official said.
There has been a wave of separatist attacks in Assam in the run-up to Independence Day that have killed 36 people, 28 of whom were Hindi-speaking migrant workers.
Police blamed Wednesday’s serial blasts and the attacks on the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland in Assam since 1979.