The police suspect All Adivasi National Liberation Army's involvement in the explosion that rocked the high-security elite train that was travelling from Dibrugarh in eastern Assam to New Delhi via Guwahati.

A spokesman of the Northeast Frontier Railway headquarters at Maligaon said the deceased were identified as Satyaprakash Rai (45), Sudama Rai (45), Lakshman Rai (44), A K Sah (20) and D Prasad (19). The four seriously inured persons were admitted to the Dimapur Civil Hospital in Nagaland. The toll may go up as injured were stated to be in critical condition.

All passengers were traveling bonafide in the luggage van of the Rajdhani Express from Dibrugarh to Guwahati, the NFR official said.

The AANLA, which the Assam police suspect of carrying out the attack that rocked the Dibrugarh-Guwahati-New Delhi Rajdhani Express, was floated by a section of frustrated tea tribe (Adivasi) youths in 2005.

The militant group has a strong bastion in the forest areas along the border areas of Golaghat and Karbi Anglong district of Assam. It has recently spread its tentacles to the tea belt area of the Udalguri district of north Assam.

A senior Assam police official said the AANLA was floated by a desperate band of Adivasi youths. The outfit was formed with the help of bigger insurgents groups including the Naga rebel group, National Socialist Council of Nagaland-IM and the United Liberation Front of Asom.

The bigger groups were suspected to be providing arms and training to the AANLA cadres. The bigger groups utilised the AANLA to launch extortion drives in the tea belt of Golaghat district and Karbi Anglong.

Of late, the ULFA became cool towards the AANLA and accused the latter of trying to create a division between the tea tribe community and the other ethnic groups in the state in the wake of the last incident of violence involving Adivasi agitators in Beltola area of Guwahati.

Image: Map of location of train blast
Photograph: KBK Graphics

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