GAUHATI: Three people were killed and four others wounded in a bomb attack early on Sunday in India’s restive northeast, police said, the second strike in the area in less than a week.

The blast shook west Imphal, state capital of Manipur, which borders Myanmar — an area that has been plagued by separatist violence for decades. “Three labourers were killed in the blast and four more injured,” senior state police official A. Singh said.

An IED (improvised explosive device) was planted close to a bus depot and went off early on Sunday morning, Singh added.

No rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack and it was not immediately clear what the motive was.

The blast was the second such strike in Imphal in less than a week. On Dec 15, a similar explosion killed one person and injured five others. The remote state has long been affected by insurgent violence and is home to dozens of tribal groups and small guerrilla armies fighting New Delhi’s rule.

They often compete against each other in turf wars for dominance in the state.At least 50,000 people have lost their lives in insurgency-driven violence in six of India’s seven northeastern states since the country’s independence from Britain in 1947, authorities say.

The militants say the northeast has been largely neglected by India’s political leaders, accusing them of focusing only on the development of the country’s relatively wealthier eight northern states.

Published in Dawn December 22th , 2014