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Assam violence claims another victim

Medical assistants carry a person, who was injured in a blast, into a hospital in Gauhati, India, on Friday. A bomb exploded near a crowded bus station, critically wounding at least three people in India's insurgency-wracked northeast on Friday, the second such blast in the area in three days, police said. PHOTO: AP

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.

"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.
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