AT LEAST 61 people died in a wave of bombings in teeming bazaars and crowded neighbourhoods in India's insurgency-ridden northeastern Assam state yesterday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the 12 blasts that ripped through Assam's main city, Guwahati, and three other districts in the space of an hour, injuring nearly 300 others.
Indefinite curfew was imposed in some of the bombed areas after mobs enraged at the attacks - and the inability of the police to prevent them - went on the rampage, even setting fire-fighting vehicles ablaze.
"Immediately after the blast there was complete darkness for a while and I saw several bodies and severed limbs all around me" eyewitness Bikash Goyal said in Guwahati, where 31 people died in four of the dozen blasts that rocked the war-torn state.
Nineteen others died in Assam's western Kokrajhar district while another 11 were killed in nearby Barpeta town, officials said.
Television news channels showed blood-soaked victims lying on streets littered with the remains of blown-up cars and motorcycles as black smoke billowed into the sky over Guwahati.
"This is an act of cowardice and we shall deal with the situation firmly," state chief minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Senior police officer GP Singh said two of the bombs in Guwahati were strapped to motorcycles and scooters but claimed it was too early to confirm this as the force was involved in rescuing victims and restoring order.
Assam's health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and the provincial government spokesman, however, said preliminary investigations revealed that some of the bombs had been strapped to bicycles and packed with incendiary material to trigger fires.
She also blamed the attacks on the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom, which has been fighting for an independent homeland in the state since 1979.