The death toll in Sunday's twin blasts in Assam has gone up to 14, even as the state government vowed to intensify operation against the banned United Liberation Front of Asom militants.
Among the dead is a one-year-old boy, Suresh Shah, who died in the intensive care unit of the Guwahati Medical College Hospital in the wee hours of Monday.
Traders in Fancy Bazar area, where one of the powerful explosions killed at least nine persons on Sunday, kept their shutters down on Monday in protest.
Traders in many other parts of the city, too, kept their shops closed in solidarity with their counterparts in Fancy Bazar, the biggest business hub in the city.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi vowed on Monday to intensify operations against the banned ULFA.
Gogoi, who went straight to the blast sites and to meet the victims in hospital on his arrival from New Delhi, regretted the loss of innocent lives and said such acts of terrorism needed be handled firmly.
Fifty people have been reported injured, 15 of them seriously, in the blasts suspected to have been set off by the United Liberation Front of Assam in quick succession in the busy Fancy Bazaar and Noonmati areas of Guwahati.
Eight people were killed and more than 45 injured in a powerful bomb explosion at Chai Galli of the busy commercial centre of Fancy Bazaar in the city at 6.45 pm. Official sources said the bomb was fitted to a bycycle.
Five people died on the spot and three others succumbed to their injuries on way to Guwahati Medical College Hospital. The injured were taken to nearby Mohendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital from where 15 of the critically wounded were shifted to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital.
The casualty in the Fancy Bazaar blast was expected to go up, police added.
Fifteen minutes before that, a grenade exploded at Patharquarry area in Noonmati near Indian Oil Corporation's Guwahati Refinery and Oil India Limited installations, killing four persons and injuring five.
The crowded Chai Galli area of Fancy Bazaar area wore a devastated look with mangled bodies strewn around, vehicles and several shops damaged. The site of the bomb blast in the Fancy Bazar area of Guwahati, where eight persons were killed, presented a ghastly sight with blood-spattered bodies and dismembered limbs strewn all over the place and wails of the injured renting the air.
Utter chaos and panic prevailed after the blasts set off by suspected ULFA group, with anxious relatives and local people desperately searching for their near and dear ones.
Rescuers used whatever means of transport was available, including hand-pulled carts, to take the injured to hospitals. Hospitals are working in full force with doctors desperately trying to revive the critically injured, giving oxygen to some and saline and first aid to others.
