ULFA blow up oil pipeline, sets off bombs

TINSUKIA: The ULFA struck on the first day of the Durga puja on Friday setting off a bomb in a market in Tinsukia town, seriously injuring six persons while a portion of an Oil India Limited pipeline was blown up in Dibrugarh.

Militants detonated a bomb in the Central Plaza market complex of the Tinsukia development authority causing panic among shoppers who were busy making last minute purchases, police said.

The six injured were taken to the Assam Medical College hospital in Dibrugarh, police said.

According to official sources in Dibrugarh, the militants used a powerful bomb to blow up a portion of the Oil India pipeline at Salbari under Tingkhong police station at 6.20 pm. Police and top OIL officials had rushed to the spot, they said.

Meanwhile, police managed to avert another disaster when they recovered and defused a powerful bomb planted by the ULFA in a dustbin on the busy Plaza-Assam trunk road in Tinsukia town, police sources said.

OIL sources said that pumping in tanks near the blast site had been stopped as a precautionary measure as oil had spilled out from the damaged pipleline.