by Zarir Hussain
GUWAHATI, India, Aug 26 (AFP) - Five people were killed and scores wounded in northeast India Thursday when militants blew up two buses, threw a grenade into a market and triggered twin blasts on a railway track, officials said.
The attacks in Assam state, and two others on Wednesday, were blamed on the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) which is fighting for an independent homeland.
Two people were killed and 33 wounded, some critically, when explosives concealed in a sack blew apart a crowded bus in the town of Gossaigaon, 270 kilometres (167 miles) west of Assam`s main city of Guwahati, officials said.
"Passengers spotted an unidentified sack inside the bus and as they were trying to disembark, the explosion took place, blowing apart the vehicle," Kokrajhar district magistrate Asish Bhutani told AFP.
An hour later a bus belonging to the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) and carrying soldiers and their families hit a landmine in Paikan, 140 kilometres west of Guwahati.
Two soldiers and a six-year-old girl, the daughter of a trooper going on holiday, were killed, police Inspector General Khagen Sharma said. Nine people were wounded.
Later Thursday a suspected ULFA militant on a motorbike threw a grenade into a busy market in Tangla, 60 kilometres north of Guwahati, police chief Khagen Sharma said.
"At least seven shoppers were critically wounded," said Sharma. The militant escaped.
Suspected ULFA militants also triggered two explosions late Thursday which injured three people and ripped up a railway track near an oil refinery in the heart of Guwahati`s Noonmati area.
The first explosion ripped up seven metres (23 feet) of track, said Guwahati district magistrate Adsar Hazarika.
"An hour later a crowd had gathered at the railway blast site when a second bomb went off 20 metres (66 feet) away. A policeman, a photo journalist and a civilian were seriously injured," he added.
Sharma said the ULFA militants had planned the attacks and others in a desperate attempt to stay in the news. "The ULFA has rocked Assam with three blasts and two grenade attacks in the last 24 hours to grab headlines," he said.
"We have intercepted messages from ULFA militants regarding their plans to unleash terror in the state," he said.
On Wednesday suspected ULFA rebels threw a grenade outside a cinema in Dibrugarh, killing one person and wounding a dozen more.
They are also blamed for a blast on a railway track in Kokhrajhar district Wednesday which narrowly missed a goods train that had passed minutes before.
In the most deadly recent attack by suspected ULFA militants, 15 people were killed by a landmine on August 15, India`s Independence Day.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Thursday called for peace talks with ULFA and accused neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar of harbouring cadres of the group.
"The people of Assam want the ULFA to stop these barbaric attacks on civilians and come for negotiations," Gogoi said, adding, however, the rebels did not appear to be ready to talk.
"The ULFA it seems does not want to come for talks and the violent attacks are a pointer ... The ULFA has declared a war on the people of Assam and we cannot tolerate such cowardly attacks," he said.
"We want the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar to crack down on ULFA camps located in their countries ... We have definite reports of the ULFA having bases inside these two neighbouring countries."
Bangladesh has denied the presence of Indian rebel groups in its territory. Myanmar has assured New Delhi that it will expel any Indian insurgents it finds.
Some 30 rebel outfits, including the ULFA, are waging insurgencies in India`s northeast as they seek greater autonomy or independence. They say New Delhi exploits the region which is rich in oil, tea and timber.
More than 50,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency violence in the northeast since India`s independence in 1947.