One of three people critically wounded after a hand grenade was thrown by suspected separatist rebels into a crowded market in India's insurgency-wracked northeast has died, police said yesterday.
Friday's explosion was the second in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, in the past three days. Two people were killed and another 14 wounded in a blast on Wednesday.
Assailants riding a motorbike lobbed the grenade into the market in the heart of Gauhati, where the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been waging a bloody battle for autonomy, said R.N. Mathur, the director-general of state police.
PHOTO: AP
"One person, who was critically wounded, died early Saturday," Rajen Singh, a top police official in Gauhati, said yesterday.
No individual or group has yet claimed responsibility for either explosion, although police suspect the ULFA, who are also believed to have been behind the killings of more than 60 people, most of them migrant laborers, earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the ULFA urged people in the state to boycott India's national day celebrations next week.
India's national Republic Day falls on Friday and marks the adoption of the country's constitution in 1950.
The ULFA and separatist groups in the neighboring states of Manipur and Tripura have called for a general strike on Friday.
The blasts in Gauhati followed a series of shootings and other attacks in the state that killed 61 Hindi-speaking migrants earlier this month.
Authorities blamed the ULFA for the killings and have launched a major hunt for their suspected hideouts in the state. ULFA has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Meanwhile, Assam's top elected official, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi promised to protect Hindi-speaking migrants in the state and asked them to ignore threats by the ULFA.
"Assam is not just for the Assamese. Any Indian can live in Assam, just like any Assamese can live anywhere in India," Gogoi told journalists on Friday night.
Last week, the ULFA ordered all Hindi-speaking migrants in Assam to leave the state, threatening more attacks if they failed to comply.
The Jan. 5-8 killings 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 over the last three decades in fighting between government forces and separatists.
The militants say the central government in New Delhi -- 1,600km to the west of Gauhati -- exploits the northeast's rich natural resources while ignoring the region's economy.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not