By IANS
Guwahati : Separatists Saturday blew up a gas pipeline in a powerful explosion in Assam, even as police foiled an attempt by rebels to trigger a blast in Guwahati, officials said.
A police spokesman said militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) triggered a blast blowing up a gas pipeline near Borhat in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district, about 370 km from here. The blast took place before dawn Saturday.
"There was a big fire soon after the blast. The pipeline was damaged in the explosion," Dipak Choudhury, additional police chief of Sivasagar district, told IANS by telephone.
The pipeline belonging to the state-owned Assam Gas Company Ltd was meant for transportation of natural gas for domestic and industrial consumers.
"There was no loss of life or any casualties. The pipeline was passing through a tea garden," the police official said.
On Thursday, suspected ULFA rebels triggered a blast inside a hospital in the same district wounding five people.
Police in Guwahati averted a major disaster by defusing a bomb planted on a footpath in the heart of the city.
"The bomb weighing about 6 kg was kept inside a box fitted with an electronic detonator and a 9-volt battery," a police official said here.
Assam is rocked by a string of explosions in the past one week – 19 people were injured Sunday in an explosion in Guwahati, while eight others were wounded in a car bomb explosion in eastern Assam.