Bomb attacks kill three in India

Suspected separatist rebels triggered four explosions, including one in a crowded market, killing three people and wounding more than 20 in India's restive north-eastern state of Assam, police said today.

The latest explosion occurred in a small market where migrant workers had set up stalls in the town of Bohori Bazaar, in western Assam, killing one person and critically wounding three others, said A. Ali, a local police officer.

The blast is the latest in a series of attacks targeting the region's minority, Hindi-speaking migrant workers.

Two explosions late last night, including one in the heart of Assam's Tinsukhia town, killed two people and wounded at least 15, the majority of whom were migrants, police said.

Early today, suspected rebels set off another explosion outside a railway station in western Assam, injuring three construction workers, according to a local police officer.

No group has claimed responsibility for the explosions, although police suspect the United Liberation Front of Asom, a rebel group fighting for a separate homeland.

The ULFA are also believed to be behind the killings of more than 60 people, most of them migrant labourers in Tinsukhia district, earlier this month.

The ULFA has been targeting migrant workers, demanding that they leave Assam.

Elsewhere in Assam, a politician was killed in the nearby town of Digboi by suspected ULFA rebels late on Saturday, police said.

"A group of militants barged into the house of a local Congress party leader and demanded his car. When he refused, they shot and killed him from close range," said B. J. Mahanta, senior police official.

This month's killings of migrant workers were Assam's worst violence in years and came after Indian authorities called off peace talks with the ULFA and a six-week temporary truce in September, and resumed military offensives against the rebels.

At least 10,000 people in Assam, most of them civilians, have died during the last three decades in fighting between government forces and separatists.

The militants say the central government in New Delhi - 1,000 miles to the west - exploits the north-east's rich natural resources while ignoring the region's economy.