By IANS
Guwahati : At least two people were killed and 10 wounded Monday in a powerful explosion at a crowded marketplace in Guwahati, officials said.
A police spokesman said the bomb was planted on a parked motorcycle in a busy commercial area here.
"The impact of the blast was so powerful that it ripped apart at least four motorcycles parked in the area and wounded 12 people," a police official said.
Two of the injured died on way to hospital. "Three people are stated to be in a critical condition," he added.
Police have blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a rebel group fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979, for the blast.
Assam has been rocked by a string of explosions in the past two weeks – while 19 people were injured in an explosion in Guwahati last week, eight were wounded in a car bomb explosion in eastern Assam. The ULFA has carried out at least 20 bomb attacks in the state in the past two months.
The ULFA was also blamed for attacks in January that killed about 80 people, 61 of them Hindi-speaking migrant workers in eastern Assam. New Delhi launched a massive military offensive against the ULFA after the strikes, killing 55 rebels and arresting 553 cadres since January.
Meanwhile, an indefinite curfew was clamped in Assam's Tinsukia district after four people were killed and 12 wounded in clashes between two groups of agitators Sunday. The violence occurred over the blocking of a highway to protest the killing of a youth by the army in an anti-insurgency operation.
Over 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency-related violence in Assam during the past two decades.