At least 84 people were killed and over 300 injured in 13 serial blasts which rocked busy areas of Guwahati and three other districtsin Assam on Thursday.
"A total of 48 people were killed in the blasts and 300 injured," Subhas Das, a top home ministry official in Assam state, said.
The blasts took place at Ganeshguri and district court close to the chief minister's residence, Fancy Bazaar, Dispur Road and Pan Bazaar area in Guwahati. Blasts also occurred in other districts of Assam including Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon.
At least 25 persons have died in Guwahati which witnessed four blasts while 10 others were killed in Kokrajhar town where three explosions occurred, three were killed in Barpeta where three bombs exploded and two died in Bongaigaon when one bomb exploded, police said, adding the toll is feared to rise as more bodies were suspected to be buried in the debris at the blast sites, adding the condition of the several of the injured is serious.
A red alert had been sounded across the state following the high intensity explosions that occurred almost simultaneously at around 11.30 am triggering fires in many areas. Most of the blasts were in crowded markets.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC have been promulgated in Guwahati following the blasts which the police suspect to be the handiwork of the banned ULFA and HUJI extremists.
The first blast in Guwahati occurred at a vegetable and fruit market at Ganeshguri in a high security zone near the flyover with a court as well as offices and homes of senior police officials adjacent to the secretariat and the Assembly. The blast caused a major fire in the area with smoke engulfing the entire market and nearby places.
The second bomb exploded in front of the Kamrup district deputy commissioner's office, injuring many and destroying several cars parked there, the sources said.
The third explosion rocked areas near the police station of the busy Fancy Bazar, triggering panic among shoppers, many of whom were injured, the sources said.
Guwahati Superintendent of Police G P Singh said that police and fire brigade were engaged in controlling the fire.
In Kokrajhar, the explosives were suspected to have been planted in a two-wheeler.
The nature of explosives is still unknown; visuals however show the explosives appear to be of high-intensity and more powerful than those used in other attacks in the country.
The Assam government suspects the ULFA may be behind the attack along with HuJI terrorists but says it is too early to reach a conclusion. Intelligence sources say that inputs of a terror threat were given to Assam specifically.
"The impact of the blast was so huge, a packed bus got half burnt and we pulled out lot of injured people and sent them to hospital," Pankaj Goswami, a witness at a blast in Guwahati, said.
In Guwahati, crowds angry with the attacks pelted police with stones. Dozens of people were wounded in skirmishes with police. At one place, police fired in the air to disperse an angry mob.
Union Home Ministry team will visit Assam for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation following the serial blasts, said Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta.
An emergency meet has been convened by the home ministry to review the situation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also cut short his Maharashtra trip.
A Cabinet meet scheduled for 6pm will be dominated by the Assam blasts.
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Present Govt flip-flop gave Ulfa breathing space: ArmyNEW DELHI: Time and again over the last two decades, the Army has seen all its major operational gains against the United Liberation Front of
Asom(Ulfa) simply fritter away because of the flip-flop policy of successive governments, both at the Centre as well as in Assam, on how exactly to deal with the militant outfit.
Left to itself, the Army believes it could have finished off Ulfa long ago. But every time it came close to breaking Ulfa's backbone, there was either a ceasefire declaration or the security forces were ordered to "go-slow" due to political expediency.
The off-and-on government policy has been there right since the days of Operation Bajrang, launched after Prafulla Mahanta government's dismissal in November 1990, which was called off barely a year later after a general amnesty was granted to release detained militants.
Similar was the fate of Operation Rhino-I in early-1992. Then, of course, Ulfa was gasping for breath in December 2003 after facing the brunt of "Operation All Clear", conducted in coordination with the Bhutanese Army, with its cadre strength being reduced to one-third from around 2,000 at that time.
But the subsequent peace talks between the Centre and the Ulfa-nominated People's Consultative Group resulted in "a go-slow" direction to the Army, giving secessionist outfit some much-needed oxygen. Ulfa, of course, has used the interregnums to regroup and rearm through its well-oiled, large-scale extortion racket. "There, of course, cannot be just a military solution to the insurgency problem. Peace talks have to be given a chance but Ulfa manages to fool the government every time," said a senior official.
"With huge amounts of money being pumped into the North-East by the Centre, much like J&K, survival of militancy has become a vested interest for some political parties there. It's common knowledge that Ulfa cadres are also used during elections," he added.
While the deadly bomb blasts in Assam on Thursday are yet to be directly traced back to Ulfa, which has an estimated strength of around 300 ''hardcore armed militants'' at present, military experts say the terror strikes could be linked to the ongoing rift between ''pro-talks'' Ulfa elements and the outfit's central leadership, including Paresh Barua and Arabinda Rajkhowa, safely based in Bangladesh.
The Ulfa central leadership is under pressure from the ''pro-talks'' elements for maintaining a deafening
silence in recent months on the danger posed to the indigenous Assamese people by the ever-mounting number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the state. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/G...how/3656568.cms____________________________
Assam blasts: SC warning as early as 2005NEW DELHI: "Assam is facing external aggression and internal disturbance." This comment from the Supreme Court came not after the serial blasts that killed scores but more than three years ago on July 12, 2005.
It had issued an unambiguous warning to the UPA government at the Centre and the Tarun Gogoi government in the state: if massive illegal migration of Bangladeshis into Assam was not stopped immediately and foreigners not deported, the situation would soon go out of control.
Both the governments paid scant attention to the ominous signals that the Supreme Court read from the November 8, 1998 report of then governor Lt Gen S K Sinha, who had prepared it after a thorough inspection of border areas and districts, discussions with the Indian high commissioner in Bangladesh and talks with political leaders. What Lt Gen Sinha's report brought out before the apex court in 2005 was the grim ground reality of Assam. His report stated: "The illegal migrants coming into India after 1971 have been almost exclusively Muslims... Muslim population in Assam has shown a rise of 77.42% from what it was in 1971. Hindu population has risen by nearly 41.89%."
Expressing concern over Muslims attaining a majority in district after district, the then governor had warned against complacency. He had said: "There is a tendency to view illegal migration into Assam as a regional matter affecting only the people of Assam. It's more dangerous dimension of greatly undermining our national security is ignored." He added: "Pakistan's ISI has been active in Bangladesh supporting militant movements in Assam. Muslim militant organisations have mushroomed in Assam and there are reports of some 50 Assamese Muslim youths having gone for training to Afghanistan and Kashmir."
He had further warned against mixing religion and the state's policy towards illegal migrants and said: "The dangerous consequences of large scale illegal migration from Bangladesh, both for the people of Assam and more for the nation as a whole, need to be emphatically stressed. No misconceived and mistaken notion of secularism should be allowed to come in the way of doing so."
To protect the territorial integrity and prevent Assamese from being reduced to a minority, the SC had directed stringent measures to detect the illegal migrants and deport them, a direction which was blatantly disobeyed.
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Govt suspects HuJI-Ulfa set off Assam blastsGUWAHATI/AGARTALA/KOLKATA: Thursday's serial blasts in Assam have strengthened intelligence agencies' suspicion that jihadis — especially
Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami (HuJI) — are increasingly using northeast-based terror outfits to carry out attacks in the region. ( Watch )
"We had information that HuJI-Bangladesh was using northeast underground bases in Bangladesh to trigger blasts. In Agartala, they used All Tripura Tiger Force and we have suspicion that in Assam they used Ulfa," said an intelligence officer.
Assam police, too, aren't naming Ulfa as the sole suspect, they eyes are on HuJI. The Assam government has reports about Ulfa and jihadi elements planning strikes, either jointly or independently, said CM Tarun Gogoi on Thursday.
HuJI-B's nexus with northeast rebels was forged at the instance of ISI which used its links in Bangladesh Rifles and Bangladeshi Army intelligence DGFI, said an official with a central intelligence agency. "HuJI-B had been using northeast as their corridor to other parts of the country. They have set up sleeper cells and modules in many areas, but to carry out field operations they take help from local terror outfits, which they got with support from ISI and DGFI," he said.
This post has been edited by PriThvik: Nov 15 2008, 06:32 PM
Reason for edit: Removed some disturbing pics.we understand you want to create awareness,but this is not it.you can put source links if ya want.cheers! :Robbie
Chit Chat rules
Nov 11 2008, 09:15 PM
