By IRNA
Guwahati : A minister in India’s restive northeastern state of Assam narrowly escaped an assassination bid as 28 people were wounded, 15 of them critically, in a powerful explosion Thursday at a marketplace, officials said.
A police spokesman said the blast took place at Howraghat in Karbi Anglong district, about 290 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“The bomb was strapped to a bicycle parked by a marketplace where Assam’s Hill Areas Development Minister Khorsing Ingti was addressing a meeting,” police official A. Das said by telephone.
The venue of the minister’s meeting was about 100 metres from where the blast took place.
“Twenty eight people, most of the either shoppers or vendors were injured in the explosion,” the official said.
Fifteen of the injured were stated to be critical and were shifted to local hospitals with multiple wounds.
Police suspects the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF) or the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) for the blast.
“It could be either the KLNLF or the ULFA militants responsible for triggering the blast,