India: Shopping area rocked by rickshaw bomb

Suspected rebels triggered a bomb today in a shopping area in India’s insurgency-hit Assam state, killing one person and wounding 12 others, police said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but police suspect the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, a group that has been fighting since 1979 for an independent homeland in Assam, in India’s north-east.

Four of those wounded in the blast were taken to hospital in critical condition, said Rajen Singh, additional superintendent of police.

Several shops and homes caught fire, and the situation was worsened by cooking gas tanks exploding in the blaze, Singh said.

Many railroad workers live in the affected area in Assam’s state capital, Gauhati.

Six fire engines were trying to douse the flames Saturday, Singh said.

He said the bomb had been tied to a motorised rickshaw.

“From the modus operandi of the blast, the needle of suspicion points to the ULFA,” he said.

Peace talks between ULFA-appointed mediators and Indian federal authorities broke down last year, following disagreements.

The rebels say Assam’s indigenous people – most of whom are ethnically closer to groups in Myanmar and China than to the rest of India – are ignored by the federal government in New Delhi, some 1,000 miles to the west.

They accuse the Indian government of exploiting the north-east’s rich natural resources.