Death toll in Assam blasts rises to 77

Guwahati, Oct 31 (PTI) The toll in the serial blasts in
Assam rose to 77 Friday with 11 more people succumbing to
their injuries overnight.

Principal Secretary (Home) and official spokesman
Subhas Das said eight people died in Guwahati, which now alone
accounts for 41 deaths.

Three others succumbed to their injuries in Barpeta
taking the toll there to 15.

The number of deaths in Kokrajhar remained at 21, he
said.

In the deadliest terror attacks in Assam, near-
simultaneous blasts had ripped through Guwahati, Kokrajhar,
Bongaigaon and Barpeta Thursday, killing 66 people and
injuring about 470 others.

Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jehad-e-Islami (H.u.J.I.)
militants along with other jehadi outfits are suspected to be
behind the explosions. Although United Liberation Front of
Asom (U.L.F.A.) has denied its involvement in the terror
attacks, police do not rule out the hand of U.L.F.A. behind
the serial blasts with help from H.u.J.I. or jehadi elements.

Of the six blasts in Guwahati, RDX was used in two of
the explosions, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said, adding a
special task force has been set up to unearth the conspiracy
behind the blasts.

Assam has witnessed massive ethnic violence since early
1980s and U.L.F.A.-sponsored insurgency but this is the first
time that a terror attack in the form of serial blasts rocked
the state in such a magnitude.