At least 300 die in Indian train blast: Police
At least 300 die in Indian train blast: Police
GUWAHATI, India (Agencies): At least 300 people were killed
yesterday when a powerful bomb ripped through several carriages
of a packed train in India's northeastern state of Assam, police
said.
A senior police official told Reuters in Assam's biggest city
of Guwahati that separatist Bodo militants had used a remote-
controlled device packed with explosives to blow up the Delhi-
bound train.
"Bodo guerrillas blew up three coaches of a passenger train
killing at least 300 people at Sensapani railway station," a
senior police official said.
"They used RDX (research and development explosives) and a
remote-controlled device," the official said. Sensapani is 200 km
(125 miles) west of Guwahati, hub of the tea-rich state.
The blast came a day after tribal Bodo guerrillas blew up a
road bridge that formed the main link between India's northeast
regions and the rest of the country, injuring seven people.
Activists representing Bodo tribesmen living north of the
Brahmaputra river want a homeland within India in the state of
Assam, but an extremist fringe, the Bodoland Army, has been
fighting for a separate nation since 1989.
A police official was quoted by AFP as saying that the
explosion occurred on the Brahmaputra Mail, traveling to New
Delhi, near Kokrajhar district in Assam, 216 kilometers (133
miles) from this state capital.
A correspondent of a local Assamese daily who visited the site
and spoke with police there said: "Three compartments in the
middle got blown away. There were at least 300 passengers in
these compartments when the explosion occurred."
There were some 1,500 people on the train at the time of the
explosion, he added. The correspondent said most of the
passengers in the compartments torn apart in the blast were from
Assam.
"The blast took place at 7:15 p.m (1330 GMT), a few minutes
after the train left the Kokrajhar station for New Delhi," said
Thadou, deputy commissioner of police.
A police official said that he feared "a lot of casualties"
and medical and rescue teams were yet to reach the spot as the
explosion occurred at a remote village.
He said ten compartments of the train were badly damaged in
the blast.
"The train got derailed and traveled for a few minutes before
it halted," he added.