By Prensa Latina,
New Delhi : Inhabitants of the Indian Assam state are still perplexed by 13 consecutive bomb explosions that killed 71 people and wounded more than 640 others, plunging state capital Guwahati and three other towns into mourning Thursday.
Seven of the wounded people died Thursday night, raising the death toll to 71, but the figures could continue increasing, reported the government from the north eastern state of India, which is expecting the visit of Interior Minister Shivraj Patil.
The police arrested hundreds of suspects to interrogate them, and Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said they were ready to fight terrorism and guarantee security to people.
But sabotages in India add to a wave of attacks that make India seem as if it were losing its capacity to respond, solve and stop that wave of urban terrorism, the Indian Express daily said. In the last five months, 63 attacks in nine cities of seven states of the country have been registered, resulting in 265 deaths and nearly 2,000 wounded people.
The most tragic events occurred in Jaipur (67 deaths), Ahmedabad (57), New Delhi, shaken twice in two different days (33), Imphal (17), Kanpur (8) and Malegaon (5).
In what the press called Black Thursday in Assam, the bombs placed synchronizely in cars, tricycles, motorcycles and bicycles, were more powerful than the rest.
The investigators believe that such powerful explosions are beyond the action capacity of the separatist United Front for the Liberation of Assam, and are the first attacks of this kind in a region that usually undergoes sabotage and violence.
Although there is still not conection between the saboatge in Assam and the attack in Malegaon, Maharashtra state, the authorities in this case have arrested several ex military officers, members of a Hindu fundamentalist group, related to Indian ultraconservatism.
In that state of 27 million inhabitants, there are people from the Bodo ethnicgroup, immigrants from Bengal, the rest of the national states and several autochthonous communities, among which there are quarrels and clashes.