By IANS
Guwahati : At least 18 people were injured, two of them critically, in two separate explosions in crowded marketplaces in Assam Saturday, officials said.
A police spokesman said a powerful blast took place at the eastern Assam town of Tinsukia, about 520 km from the state’s main city of Guwahati, wounding 16 people.
“The bomb was concealed in a sack and strapped to a parked bicycle near a busy commercial area. It was a powerful blast. All the 16 people injured were either shoppers or vendors,” police official A. Das said by telephone from Tinsukia.
The injured were shifted to hospitals with multiple injuries.
In another explosion in the heart of Guwahati, two pedestrians were wounded and a vehicle damaged.
“A low intensity bomb was planted beneath a parked truck in a market area. The impact was not that powerful and hence the casualties were just two,” a senior police official said.
Police blamed both blasts on the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland in Assam since 1979.
The ULFA has not yet claimed responsibility for the explosions.