15 die in Independence Day bomb attack

A bomb exploded during an Independence Day parade in India’s remote northeast today, killing at least 15 people, mostly children, just an hour after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to fight terrorism.

Meanwhile, 17 people – again mostly children – were injured in a rocket attack during a celebration at a school in northern Jammu-Kashmir state.

In northeastern Assam state, 15 people were killed in the blast at the local college grounds in Dhemaji, a town in northeastern Assam state where they had gathered to watch the parade, said lawmaker Dilip Saikia.

Khagen Sharma, the inspector general of police in Assam, blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom for the attack in Dhemaji, about 1,015 miles northeast of New Delhi.

An hour before the blast, another explosion took place minutes before a parade started in the nearby town of Dhakuakhana, but Sharma said there were no casualties. He also blamed the attack on suspected separatist militants from ULFA, which has been fighting for a sovereign Assam since 1979.

In New Delhi earlier, Singh said his government would take a tough stand on terrorism.

“We will fight terrorism forcefully. Let there be no doubt about it. But if a group is ready to give up arms and talk to us, we are ready,” Singh said from the Red Fort, a tradition followed by each prime minister since India gained independence from two centuries of British colonial rule on August 15, 1947.

Singh said cross-border terrorism is hindering the India-Pakistan peace process, but promised to continue efforts to end five decades of hostility between the South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours.

“It is our intention to carry forward with firm resolve and sincerity the composite dialogue process with Pakistan,” Singh said. “This job is made more difficult by cross-border terrorism and bloodshed.”

The separatists have been fighting in Jammu-Kashmir state to break away from Hindu-majority India and join the Islamic nation of Pakistan. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1989.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming the Islamic militants, a charge Pakistan denies.

In today’s rocket attack in Jammu-Kashmir, children had gathered to watch an Independence Day ceremony organised by the Indian army at a school in Dangiwachi village.

The 17 people wounded included two soldiers, police officer Riaz Ahmad said. The village is located about 45 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.

It wasn’t clear who carried out the attack.

An umbrella group of separatist organisations, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, called for a general protest strike in Kashmir today, as they do each Independence Day, to express their rejection of Indian sovereignty.

Helicopters patrolled the skies while nearly 65,000 police and paramilitary troops were deployed on the ground to prevent a terrorist attack in the capital. Police blocked streets throughout central New Delhi and the airspace over the city was closed to aircraft for five hours. The premises of the Red Fort, soaked in an overnight drizzle, were covered in flowers – and piles of sandbags.

At India’s main border crossing with Pakistan at Wagah in Punjab state, thousands of Indians crammed the road leading to the frontier checkpoints at midnight, when Punjabi singers performed feet tapping dance numbers. For the first time, a group of Pakistani lawmakers and schoolchildren also attended.

In his speech, Singh also sought higher moral standards among the country’s politicians, vowed to fight poverty and government sloth and widen economic liberalisation in a way that could also help the millions of poor across India’s villages who voted Singh’s Congress party into power in May.

“I don’t have to make any promises today. I have to live up to them,” Singh said.

Singh, 72, is facing several challenges in his third month in office, including opposition over his decision to raise prices of fuel and cooking gas, poor monsoon rains that have damaged crops, and inflation that has jumped to a three year high of 7.5%.

“We have reduced the impact of poverty but we need to do much more to eradicate it. We will liberalise our economy but we will let everyone develop,” he said.

Singh has been praised for moving forward with his predecessor’s initiative to pursue peace talks with archrival Pakistan.

After coming close to fighting a fourth war in 2002, Pakistan and India embarked on a peace process aimed at resolving their differences, including their conflicting claims to all of Jammu-Kashmir, which is divided between them.