GUWAHATI: At least 12 people, including two paramilitary personnel, were wounded on Sunday in an explosion at a marketplace in India’s Assam state, police said.

The blast took place near a temple in the busy Fancy Bazar area in Assam’s main city of Guwahati during evening shopping hours, Rajen Singh, police chief of Guwahati city, told newsmen.

“The bomb was on a parked motorcycle. The victims were either evening shoppers or vendors,” Singh said.

“Two of the injured were paramilitary troopers on a routine patrol in the area,” Singh said, blaming the explosion on the outlawed ULFA, a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland.

The blast was the third in Assam in the past four days. Eight people were injured on Friday in a car bomb explosion in eastern Assam, while two were wounded in a blast at a Guwahati warehouse on Thursday.

The ULFA has been blamed for a string of attacks in January that killed 80 people in eastern Assam.

An Indian home ministry report released earlier this week said 99 civilians had been killed in ULFA attacks in the three months to March 31.—AFP