A local youth risked his life and defused a powerful bomb planted on a roadside here by pulling out the wires, well before the police arrived at the spot.
GUWAHATI: A local youth risked his life and defused a powerful bomb planted on a roadside here by pulling out the wires, well before the police arrived at the spot. Several lives would have been lost if the bomb had exploded, the police said.
A police spokesman Monday said they were informed by locals about the presence of an unidentified sack lying on a pavement near the city's Bamunimaidan area.
"There was total chaos in the area. I went near and saw some wires attached to the sack and immediately decided to react. I quickly pulled out the wires as people started fleeing from the area," Arup Kumar Das, the 26-year-old truck driver who defused the bomb, said.
The police said the bomb weighed about two kg and could have an impact in a radius of about 200 metres.
"There was a school and I saw many children. That could be one of the reasons for me to take a split-second decision to react," Das said.
Experts however strongly discourage the kind of action that Das took. "That bomb could have gone off as soon as it was touched. Amateurs must never try this. The unwiring of a bomb must be left to trained a bomb disposal squad," a foreinsic expert said in New Delhi.
Das was later taken to the local police station an interrogated.
"We have just brought him to find out how he knew to defuse the bomb," a police official said.
Locals in the area were all praise for the man who averted a possible disaster.
B. Das, a community elder, said: "Many lives would have been lost had the bomb gone off. The youth's courage needs to be acknowledged."
There were four explosions Sunday in Assam in which three people were killed and 18 wounded -- two blasts in Guwahati and another at the eastern town of Tinsukia.
The police blamed all three blasts on the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), which has been fighting for an independent homeland since 1979.
The ULFA observes Nov 27 as black day. On this day in 1990, New Delhi launched 'Operation Bajrang', the first military offensive against the outfit, after it was declared illegal.
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