At least 12 people, mostly shoppers, were killed and more than 40 injured in two simultaneous bomb attacks on Sunday in the north-eastern Indian city of Guwahati, police said. The Press Trust of India (PTI) put the number of those injured at 52 and said 15 of them were in critical condition following the two attacks.
Police said the first bomb ripped through the upscale Fancy Bazaar shopping arcade in the heart of Guwahati, the largest city in the state of Assam. "We have eight people killed in first blast which took place at around 6:40pm (1340 GMT)," said Deepak Narayan Dutt, Assam's police chief.
"And some 40 people are injured in the two attacks," Dutt added. Half of the injured victims were shoppers and vendors at the marketplace, Guwahati deputy police chief Rajan Singh said and added the popular complex was crowded with people when the explosion occurred.
"An IED (improvised explosive device) caused both the blasts," he said as military and police explosives experts fanned into other city markets and malls, trawling for concealed bombs.
The second bomb went off almost simultaneously in Patharkuwari on the city's outskirts, leaving at least four civilians dead, state police chief Dutt said, updating the earlier toll by one. PTI said 45 of the victims were injured in the market blast while seven were hurt in Patharkuwari.
Federal officials suggested the target of the second bombing was sensitive installations of the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation in Patharkuwari. Indian troops moved into Guwahati and cordoned off the city and launched a manhunt for the attackers, witnesses said. Police were using cranes to remove the damaged cars and debris from the partly damaged Fancy Bazaar, they said.
So far none of Assam's various outlawed rebel forces have claimed responsibility for the two attacks but Singh said police suspected the region's dominant United Liberation Front of Asom guerrilla group was behind the twin blasts.