Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A bomb explosion killed two people and injured ten others in the capital of the northeast Indian state of Assam on Monday.

Assamese protesters who were blockading a highway over the killing of a local civilian in an anti-insurgency operation last week, clashed with tea-plantation workers whose supplies were interrupted by the blockage. Five people died in the ensuing violence on Sunday.

Senior Superintendent of Police S.N. Singh says that the bomb had been left on a motorbike in the market area of the capital, Guwahati. Separatist groups fighting for an independent Assamese state have been blamed for the attack.

Over 20 bombings had been carried out by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) over the last two months. Nineteen people were injured in the capital last week and a further eight were injured in a car bomb explosion.

Attacks by the ULFA killed eighty people, mostly migrant workers in January. The Indian security forces have been fighting the separatists groups since 1990, and have killed 55 rebels and arrested over 500 since the start of 2007.