Assam: 15 held for alleged involvement in planting bombs on Independence Day

The Assam police in association with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have arrested 15 persons, including three women, for their alleged involvement in planting bomb-like substances at 24 places in the state on the Independence Day this year.

Terming the development as a “major breakthrough”, the Assam police said in a release issued on Sunday that the arrests took place on Saturday night at different places “after prolonged intelligence gathering” into the cases of planting of “suspected IED (improvised explosive device) like materials”.

“Assam Police, with technical support of NIA, conducted coordinated raids in different parts of the state and apprehended 15 persons including 3 women last night,” the release said.

It added that the arrests were based on specific input received from various sources during the investigation of attempted sabotage activity. All 15 accused are being interrogated to unearth “the larger conspiracy”.

“Incriminating facts have been untethered after preliminary interrogation of the apprehended persons and more information about the conspiracy are expected to be known after prolonged interrogation, in due course of time,” the release said.

While one person each was arrested from Tinsukia, Nagaon, Sadiya, Nalbari and Tamulpur districts, three persons each were arrested from Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur and two persons each from Guwahati and Jorhat.

The Independence Day celebrations in Assam got a jolt when the banned United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) sent emails to a few media houses in the state claiming to have planted bombs at 24 places.

The mail contained details of places where 19 explosive devices were planted while the exact locations of five others were not mentioned.

Security and police personnel who were engaged in parades and other events were soon deployed to search for the explosive devices.

Though the ULFA-I email mentioned that the devices wouldn’t blast due to some “technical fault” and sought public help to trace them, police didn’t take any chances and bomb squads were pressed into service to locate and deactivate the devices.

Following search operations over two days, 10 improvised explosive device-like objects were found at various places including four in Guwahati. None of the devices went off and no one was injured.

The Assam police set up several special investigation teams (SITs) to probe the cases and announced a reward of ₹5 lakh to anyone providing “credible information on persons involved in making, transporting, planting of these devices”.

It was decided that two cases involving recovery of bomb-like devices in Guwahati and Lakhimpur would be handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).