Guwahati, Dec 2 (IANS) A tribal militant group Tuesday claimed responsibility for the train bombing in Assam that killed three people and wounded 30 more, besides the gunning down of two Hindi-speakers.
'We have carried out the explosion at the train and also the killing of two Hindi speaking people as a mark of protest against the apathetic attitude of the state government,' R. Teron, general secretary of the outlawed Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), told local journalists over telephone.
The blast went off inside a carriage of an Inter City passenger train at 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 station when a powerful explosion went off inside one of the crowded coaches,' a railway official said by telephone.
One person died on the spot and two people succumbed to their injuries at a hospital, a 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 official added.
'The explosion ripped apart the carriage with people tossed in the air,' Vishal Kumar, a witness who was at the railway station waiting to board another train to Guwahati, said by telephone.
In another incident in the same district of Karbi Anglong, KLNLF militants Tuesday shot dead two Hindi-speaking people.
A police official said that heavily armed KLNLF militants entered village Dolamora, about 290 km from Guwahati, and fired indiscriminately on a group of Hindi-speaking people.
'Two people were killed and we understand both of them were petty traders,' the official said.
'We shall carry out more such attacks as the government failed to respond to our peace overtures, besides paying no heed to our demands for development of the hill areas in the district,' the KLNLF leader said.
The KLNLF is a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the majority Karbi tribe in the area. The group Tuesday launched an economic blockade in the region to pressurise the government to hold peace talks.
Assam witnessed a deadly wave of bombings Oct 30 in which about 95 people were killed and 300 injured.
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