WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Toll in India's northeast explosions rises to 76
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-31 13:38 GAUHATI, India - Investigators searched through rubble Friday for clues on the kinds of explosives used in more than a dozen coordinated blasts that killed at least 76 people in crowded streets and markets of northeastern India.
The death toll in the explosions in Assam state rose to 76 from 61 as more than a dozen people succumbed to their injuries overnight, said Subhas Das, the state's home commissioner. More than 300 people were wounded. The scale and planning behind Thursday's 13 blasts surprised authorities, who struggled to determine who was behind the attacks. Officials said they suspected the largest of several militant groups operating in the state, the United Liberation Front of Asom, but the group denied involvement in the attacks. Federal investigators and forensic officials began work to determine what kind of explosives were used, said Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Assam state's inspector general of police. "Investigations are at a very preliminary stage but we have reasons to believe that the militants used PE-3 explosives, a highly plasticized, RDX-based explosive," he added. The bombs were planted in cars and rickshaws and the largest explosion took place near the office of Assam's top government official, leaving bodies and charred, mangled cars and motorcycles strewn across the road. Bystanders dragged the wounded and dead to cars that took them to hospitals. Police officers covered charred bodies with white sheets in the street. Later, dozens of people angry over the blasts took to the streets of the state capital, Gauhati, stoning vehicles and torching at least two fire engines. Police imposed a curfew on the city and closed roads leading in and out of the area. Late Thursday, officials blamed the state's largest separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom, for the blasts. "The needle of suspicion is on ULFA," said Assam government spokesman Himanta Biswa Sharma. Mahanta also said that ULFA's likely role was being investigated but added that the sophistication of the blasts suggests that the rebel group was "assisted by a force who has adequate expertise in such attacks." The separatist group has never carried out an attack of this size and complexity, which closely resembles bombings that have rocked other Indian cities this year. Those attacks were blamed on Islamic militants. Anjan Borehaur, a spokesman for the United Liberation Front of Asom, denied his group had any role in Thursday's attacks. India's northeast, an isolated region wedged between Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar with only a thin corridor connecting it to the rest of India, is beset by dozens of conflicts. More than 10,000 people have died in separatist violence over the past decade in the region. In July, at least 49 people were killed in violence between members of the Bodo tribe and recent migrants to the area, most of whom are Muslims. |
