Thaindian News

Guwahati, Dec 2 (IANS) Three people were killed and over 30 wounded, some of them critically, in a powerful explosion Tuesday inside a passenger train in Assam, officials said.A police spokesman said the blast went off inside a carriage of an Inter City passenger train at the Diphu railway station, about 300 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.

The train was bound for Tinsukia in eastern Assam from Guwahati.

“The train was parked at the Diphu railway station when a powerful explosion went off inside one of the crowded coaches,” a railway official said by telephone requesting not to be named.

One person died on the spot and two succummbed to their injuries at a local hospital, the police official said.

“There are a large number of women and children among the casualties. The condition of at least six of them are stated to be critical,” the police official said.

“The explosion ripped apart the carriage with people tossed in the air after the blast,” Vishal Kumar, a witness who was at the railway station waiting to board another train to Guwahati, said by telephone.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the explosion.

“We are yet to ascertain who could be behind the explosion,” the police official said.

The outlawed Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the majority Karbi tribe in the area, is one of the powerful outfits in the region where the explosion took place.

The KLNLF Tuesday launched an economic blockade in the region to pressurise the government to hold peace talks.

“We are looking into the KLNLF’s role for the train attack,” the police spokesman said.

Assam witnessed a deadly wave of bombings Oct 30 in which about 95 people were killed and 300 injured.