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Sunday, May 27, 2007
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Deafening sound, huge ball of fire

Sushanta Talukdar

Guwahati: "I heard a deafening sound and saw a huge ball of fire" as the bomb blast occurred on Sati Joymoti Road at Athgaon here on Saturday, said Mridul Patowary, a resident.

Six persons were killed and 25 injured in the explosion allegedly triggered by the United Liberation Front of Asom.

The body of an autorickshaw driver, Nirmal Dey, was blown to pieces. It was thrown out of the vehicle and one of his severed hands was found on the premises of a building at a distance of 20 feet. Mr. Patowary, his brother Sujit Patowary and others rushed the injured to the Marwari Maternity Hospital, from where they were shifted to the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital.

Rajesh Jain, a trader, said: "My elder brother Dipak Jain had a narrow escape although his eardrum was damaged. He was about to take the road but suddenly changed his mind and asked me to come down for some discussion."

The area reeked of burnt human flesh and blood. The entire stretch of the road was covered with glass pieces of smashed windowpanes of roadside multistoreyed houses. A false ceiling on the seventh floor of a building under construction was ripped apart. A boundary wall of another building, also under construction, near which the autorickshaw fitted with a bomb was parked, was razed to the ground. The building owner Md. Salim said four construction workers were injured as splinters hit them.

This was the fifth blast in Guwahati, seventh in the State and second in Athgaon in the past 24 days, all of which claimed eight lives and left 83 injured.

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