ISF-IM claim responsibility for Assam blasts: Report

Guwahati: While the investigating agencies were probing a possible involvement of HuJI-ULFA link behind the deadly Assam blasts on Thursday that claimed 77 lives, a local news channel said it was contacted by an unknown terror outfit named Islamic Security Force that claimed the responsibility of the blasts along with the notorious Indian Mujahideen.

Zaheer Hussain, the Managing Editor of News Live, a local Assamese channel, said that the claim was made by the terrorist outfit in an SMS sent to them.

The police today picked up a person named Zulfiquar Ali from Nagaon for alleged involvement in the blast. His vehicle was supposed to have been used in the blasts.

Earlier in the day the police questioned over 20 persons on lines of a possible HuJI-ULFA link while curfew was clamped in worst-hit Ganeshguri after protesters went on rampage.

The scale and planning behind the blasts have led the police to suspect local militants joining hands with terrorist outfits to carry out the coordinated strikes.

A team of NSG experts from New Delhi visited the blast sites at Ganeshguri, the deputy commissioner's office and Fancy Bazaar here to make an on-the-spot assessment of yesterday's terror strikes that left over 450 wounded. ULFA had yesterday denied any hand in the blasts.

"We are not taking seriously the denial by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA-of being responsible for the blasts) because on earlier occasions also they have done so", a top Assam police official said. The ULFA cadres are being trained by the Jehadi militants and there is definitely a link between the two which is being investigated, he said.

Schools and educational institutions remained closed in Guwahati while a total shut-down was observed in Kokrajhar following a bandh call by VHP and BJP.

The toll in the serial blasts in Assam has risen to 77 with 11 more people succumbing to their injuries overnight.

Ganeshguri had witnessed protests soon after the blasts on Thursday with the mob torching a police vehicle, a fire tender and two ambulances.

They had also tried to storm the secretariat carrying two charred bodies in a push cart.

The entry and exit road to the area has been sealed since the blasts and only a few vehicles were plying on the Ganeshguri flyover, which connects the Guwahati-Shillong road.

Linking HujI to Assam blasts 'irresponsible': Bangladesh

Bangladesh today termed as "irresponsible" Indian authorities' pointing of needle of suspicion towards the outlawed HuJI militant group over the Assam serial blasts that claimed 77 lives.

The allegation about the Bangladesh-based HuJI's involvement was being made without any proof which "is an irresponsible act," a senior Home Ministry official here said preferring anonymity.

"The Indian authorities earlier also could not come up with any evidence to prove the engagement of any Bangladesh-based outfit in terror attacks on their territory," the official said.

His comments came as Indian security officials probed a possible link between Harkat-ul Jihad (HuJI) and the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) behind yesterday's serial blasts in Assam.

A spokesman of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) had recently said the outlawed HuJI lost its "organisational strength" due to a massive security clampdown in the past two years leading to the arrest of most of its top leaders, including its chief Mufty Hannan.

Bangladesh banned HuJI in October 2005 while the United States earlier this year designated it as a "foreign terrorist organisation".

Indian security officials suspected the outfit's involvement in the Jaipur serial bombings also several months ago.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government condemned as "a cowardly act of terrorism" the serial blasts in Assam.

"It is a cowardly act of terrorism. Violence cannot be a tool for achievement of political objectives," Interim Cabinet's Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said in a statement.

Bangladeshis "stand firmly beside their Indian neighbours at this sad hour," he said.



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