New attacks in India's northeast

Suspected separatist rebels set off a string of fresh bomb blasts in northeastern India yesterday, bringing the death toll in a weekend of violence to 56.

Six separate attacks in streets and markets across the northeastern state of Assam killed 10 people yesterday.

They followed a series of bombings and attacks in Assam and neighbouring Nagaland on Saturday that killed 46 people.

No one claimed responsibility, but officials blamed the Assam attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which was marking the day it began fighting for a separate homeland for Bodo tribals in 1985.

Police said the attacks in Assam appeared to be unrelated to those in Nagaland. Twenty-six people died in three bomb attacks in Nagaland on Saturday, the deadliest since a ceasefire with the main Naga separatist group began seven years ago.

Yesterday's bombings targetted markets in remote towns across Assam. Two of the bombs had been strapped to bicycles.

"There were people crying out in pain, there were others walking with blood on their clothes," a resident, Hiren Barua, told Reuters by telephone from Sonari, 500 kilometres from Assam's main city Guwahati.

The weekend attacks in the oil and tea producing state of Assam were the worst since separatists launched a rebellion against Indian rule there in 1979.

Along with the Bodos, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is also fighting for independence in the state.

The separatists accuse the federal government of plundering the region's natural resources. They also complain that New Delhi has ignored the northeast because of its focus on disputed Kashmir, where it has faced a separatist rebellion since 1989.

State Home Commissioner Biren Kumar Gohain told Reuters the government would take action against the militants but declined to give further details. "We are planning for operations in the militant stronghold," he said.

Federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil, on a tour of Assam and Nagaland, said more troops would be deployed to bring peace to the region which borders China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.