Four killed and dozens injured in Assam violence (Roundup)

Dec 2, 2008, 15:40 GMT

New Delhi - Two people were killed and 30 injured in a powerful explosion inside a passenger train in India's north-eastern Assam state on Tuesday, police said, while two others were killed in a gun attack.

The blast occurred in a carriage of an intercity train that was stationary at the Diphu railway station, about 300 kilometres east of Assam's main city of Guwahati, an official at the Guwahati police control room said.

The train was travelling from Guwahati to Tinsukia in eastern Assam. Police said at least six people were critically injured.

A powerful bomb was placed in a carriage and set off by a timer device, a senior police official of Karbi Anglong district said.

In a separate incident, a group of heavily armed rebels fired indiscriminately on some Hindi-speaking people in Damora village of Karbi Anglong district, about 390 kilometres east of Guwahati, killing two people, the police said.

A tribal rebel group claimed responsibility for both the blast and for the shooting incident, IANS news agency reported.

The banned Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the majority Karbi tribe in the area where the blast took place, had called for an economic blockade in the region on Tuesday to pressure the government to hold peace talks.

The KNLF has links with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam, which has been fighting for a sovereign Assam.

Both groups have targeted Hindi-speaking migrants from other parts of India in the past.

The north-east region is home to more than 200 ethnic groups and has been plagued by insurgency throughout the last half century.

An estimated 50 militant groups operate in the north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya.