GUWAHATI, Aug 14: With insurgency groups in the North East determined to carry out a day-long bandh on the fiftieth year of independence, the Army is taking no chances. For the fourth consecutive day, there was no let up in the series of attacks unleashed by the insurgent groups in Assam.

Seven passengers were killed and as many injured when a bomb ripped through a train and an oil tanker derailed following a sabotage, during the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) sponsored 36-hour ``Assam bandh'' which ended at 5 pm today.

Faced with calls of ``public curfew'' and boycott of official programmes, state governments in the north-east have taken unprecedented security measures for tomorrow's golden jubilee celebrations. Additional police pickets have been posted in vulnerable areas and patrolling by security forces has been tightened in insurgency-prone Manipur, Assam, Tripura and Nagaland, official sources said.

A powerful bomb which exploded under the railway track at Silonibari in Lakhimpur district in Eastern Assam at 10.50 am today, damaged the last coach of the 175-UP passenger train proceeding from Rangapara to Murkongselek, killing six passengers on the spot.

Four other passgners who were grieviously injured and stated to be not out of danger, have been shifted to the North Lakhimpur civil hospital alongwith seven others who sustained minor injuries.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.