Bomb explosions kill 1, injure 15 in India's insurgency-hit northeast

INDIA, Three separate bomb explosions killed one person and wounded 15 others in northeastern India's insurgency-ravaged Assam state, police said.

Two of the bombs exploded Sunday near markets in the state capital, Gauhati, killing one person and injuring three others, said the state's inspector general of police, R. Chandranathan.

The third bomb, in the eastern district of Tinsukia, injured 12 others, police said. In that attack, explosives were placed in a car and the driver jumped from the vehicle as it was moving at slow speed, local superintendent of police P.K. Bhuyan said.

The driver then escaped on a motorcycle, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but police said they suspect the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, a group that has been fighting since 1979 for an independent homeland in the state.

"We believe the ULFA is responsible for these blasts and is trying demonstrate its strike potential ahead of its planned protest day on Tuesday," Chandranathan said.

The ULFA marks Nov. 27, the day when the Indian government outlawed the group in 1990, as a day of protest.

The rebels say Assam's indigenous people - most of whom are ethnically closer to groups in Myanmar and China than to the rest of India - are ignored by the federal government in New Delhi, some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west.

They accuse the Indian government of exploiting the northeast's rich natural resources.

Gauhati, Monday, Reuters