Local group owns responsibility for Assam blasts

The message said, “we thank all our holy members and partners” for successfully carrying out the task. The SMS was received on the mobile of the channel’s input desk from the number 0-98646-93690.

The mobile phone was subsequently switched off and security forces traced it to Moirabari in Central Assam’s Nagaon district registered in the name of one Nazir Ahmed.

Police officials are investigating the matter. The outfit was formed in 2000 in Lower Assam’s Bodo-dominated areas “to counter” the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) and NDFB militants, police sources said. The full text of the SMS is:

“We, ISF-IM, take the responsibility of yesterday blast. We warn all of Assam and India for situation like this in future. We thank all our holy members and partners.”

Death toll touches 77

The toll in the serial blasts in Assam rose to 77 on Friday with 11 more people succumbing to their injuries overnight.

Principal Secretary (Home) and official spokesman Subhas Das said eight people died in Guwahati, which now alone accounts for 41 deaths.

Three others succumbed to their injuries in Barpeta taking the toll there to 15.

The number of deaths in Kokrajhar remained at 21, he said.

In the deadliest terror attacks in Assam, near-simultaneous blasts had ripped through Guwahati, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta on Thursday, killing 66 people and injuring about 470 others.

Bangladesh-based HuJi militants along with other jehadi outfits are suspected to be behind the explosions. Although ULFA has denied its involvement in the terror attacks, police do not rule out the hand of ULFA behind the serial blasts with help from HuJI or jehadi elements.

Of the six blasts in Guwahati, RDX was used in two of the explosions, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said, adding a special task force has been set up to unearth the conspiracy behind the blasts.

Assam has witnessed massive ethnic violence since early 1980s and ULFA-sponsored insurgency but this is the first time that a terror attack in the form of serial blasts rocked the state in such a magnitude.

Curfew clamped down in Guwahati

Curfew was clamped today in worst blast-hit area of Ganeshguri, adjacent to the capital complex at Dispur, here as protesters went on a rampage forcing police to fire in the air.

The protesters had gathered near a flyover – a few metres from the blast site, shouting slogans against the government’s alleged failure to provide security to the common people.

Deputy Commissioner Prateek Hajela said the protesters, turned violent and went on a rampage attacking the security personnel deployed in the area.

The police first resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the protesters but later fired in the air, Hajela said. Curfew was then clamped in the area, the site of three blasts on Thursday.

Ganeshguri had witnessed protests soon after the serial blasts with the mob torching a police vehicle, a fire tender and two ambulances.

They had also tried to storm the secretariat carrying two charred bodies in a push cart. The entry and exit road to the area has been sealed since the blasts and only a few vehicles were plying on the Ganeshguri flyover, which connects the Guwahati-Shillong road. All shops and commercial establishments have remained closed in the area since morning.