INDIA:At least 17 people were killed and nearly 40 wounded when a powerful bomb exploded yesterday in India's troubled northeast, police said. The device, thought to have been hidden in a rickshaw near a high-security police commando training centre in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state, killed two people on the spot.
The explosion ripped through a busy market area near an oil depot in central Imphal, where many people were eating at food stalls.
"We are yet to identify the dead and are not sure if any policemen were among those killed," Radheshyam, a senior police officer, who goes by one name, said in Imphal. Police said most of the dead were civilians. Police officers said severed limbs and body parts were scattered outside the police training facility.
Security forces cordoned off the area and bomb experts picked up fragments of metal for examination, while policemen tried to keep curious locals away, police said.
Yesterday's bomb attack was the most lethal in recent times in Imphal. Rebels frequently target heavily guarded residential areas of ministers and senior officials with bomb or grenade attacks, Radheshyam said.
"The blast has caused panic in the city and for the first time there have been so many civilian casualties," Prem Singh, a local resident, said.
No separatist group has claimed responsibility for the blast, but police suspect the separatist People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (Prepak) carried out the attack.
On Sunday, a grenade exploded close to chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh's heavily fortified residence. There were no casualties. A spokesman for Prepak, which last month fired a shell at Mr Singh's house, yesterday said the group was responsible for Sunday's attack.
Intelligence officials say they do not rule out the involvement of another Manipuri rebel group, the Kanglei Yana Kana Lup, which recently attacked "corrupt" officials and beat up students suspected of cheating in exams.
India's northeast, comprising eight states, has seen separatist and tribal insurgencies for the past 60 years. Militant groups accuse New Delhi of plundering the region's mineral and forest resources, but investing little in return.
The region is home to more than 200 tribes and ethnic groups. Manipur state is reportedly home to about a dozen rebel groups. Some are fighting for the state's independence, others for autonomous tribal homelands.