Two teens held for Independence Day bomb blasts in Assam

Two boys, aged 15 and 16 years, were picked up from No. 3 Kakojan on Tuesday on the basis of information gathered from Kakojan, Tinsukia district Superintendent of Police Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta told PTI on Wednesday. 

According to the SP, the boys, who are students of class nine and ten in a school at Kakojan, had confessed on August 11 to planting the bombs under instructions of ULFA-I cadre at Laipuli, No. 6 line of Budlabeta Tea Estate, No. 8 line of Sokreting TE and one near Doomdooma bypass RCC bridge, Mahanta said. The explosives, all programme devices, were set up four days before Independence Day and the boys had used a motorcycle for planting them, the SP said. 

The boys had also said four ULFA-I cadre belonging to Morigaon, Jorhat, Golaghat and Sivasagar districts had engaged them for planting the bombs and that three of the insurgents were carrying AK assault rifles. On August 11, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded inside a drain along Philobari bypass road near Budalbeta TE. On Independence Day, a series of five bomb explosions rocked several places in Tinsukia and Charaido districts. In Tinsukia district, an explosion was triggered near Indira Gandhi School at Laipuli area on the outskirts of the district headquarters.