I-day blasts: Two teenagers picked up for planting bombs

Tinsukia, Aug 17 (PTI) Two teenagers have been picked upby the police for allegedly planting bombs in four areas ofAssam’s Tinsukia district which was rocked by serialexplosions on Independence Day. Two boys, aged 15 and 16 years, were picked up from No. 3Kakojan yesterday on the basis of information gathered fromKakojan area, Tinsukia district Superintendent of PoliceMugdha Jyoti Mahanta told PTI today. According to the SP, he boys, who are students of classnine and ten in a school at Kakojan, had confessed on August11 to planting the bombs under instructions of ULFA-I cadre atLaipuli, No 6 line of Budlabeta Tea Estate, No 8 line ofSokreting TE and one near Doomdooma bypass RCC bridge, Mahantasaid. The explosives, all programme devices, were set up fourdays before Independence Day and the boys had used amotorcycle for planting them, the SP said. The boys had also said four ULFA-I cadre belonging toMorigaon, Jorhat, Golaghat and Sivasagar districts had engagedthem for planting the bombs and that three of the insurgentswere carrying AK assault rifles. On August 11, an improvised explosive device (IED)exploded inside a drain along Philobari bypass road nearBudalbeta T E. On Independence Day, a series of five bomb explosionsrocked several places in Tinsukia and Charaido districts. In Tinsukia district, an explosion was triggered nearIndira Gandhi School at Laipuli area on the outskirts of thedistrict headquarters. This was followed by another explosion in line no 6 ofBudlabeta TE of the area and the third IED was set off atMasuwa. The fourth one exploded at Gamtumati in Philobari areawhere ULFA-I militants on the night of August 12 had shot deadtwo persons and injured six others in indiscriminate firing atBahbon village besides exploding an IED the day before. PTICOR ESB MMAAR