By IANS
Guwahati : At least six people, including an infant, were killed and 11 injured Saturday when a powerful bomb exploded at a crowded market in Assam's main city Guwahati.
The blast took place at the busy Mackhowa vegetable market around 7.50 a.m. The bomb was strapped to a bicycle kept near the entrance of the market.
"The blast was of very high magnitude and killed five people on the spot. The dead include an infant about six to seven months old," Rajen Singh, the additional police chief of Guwahati, told IANS.
Singh said 12 people were injured in the blast. One of them succumbed to his injuries in a hospital.
"The injured were brought to the hospital with multiple wounds in their chest, face and abdomen," a doctor at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital said.
Police blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a group fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979, for the blast.
However, ULFA has not claimed responsibility. In the past three months, the ULFA has carried out at least 24 bombings in Assam, killing about 20 people and wounding many.
The police also blamed ULFA for a string of attacks in January that killed about 80 people, 61 of them Hindi-speaking migrant workers.
New Delhi launched a massive military offensive against ULFA after the strikes, killing 55 rebels and arresting 553 cadres since January.