National

Serial blast accused killed

GUWAHATI: The prime accused in the January 1 serial blasts in Guwahati, Pranjal Deka alias Biju Sarania of the United Liberation Front of Asom, was killed in an encounter with a joint team of police and the Army on Thursday night. The blasts claimed five lives and injured 62.

Director-General of Police G.M. Srivastav told The Hindu that while Pranjal Deka was killed in the encounter another bomb-maker, who was with him at the time of encounter,managed to escape.

The encounter took place at Halikuchi village in Kamrup district.

The joint team launched a manhunt in search of Pranjal, a hardcore ULFA cadre after he escaped the security dragnet but not before dumping an improvised explosive device in a garbage bin at Birubari locality on January 1.

The IED was the first to go off and injured two persons. His two other accomplices triggered the second and the third blasts at Bhutnath and Bhangagarh.

A day after the serial blasts, the police had released Pranjal’s photograph as the prime accused in the serial blasts shortly after Union Home Minister P. Chidamabaram told reporters here that Assam Police had nearly succeeded in apprehending the perpetrator of the serial blasts and they also knew him by his name, by face and his family members.

Guwahati Senior Superintendent of Police Pradip Chandra Saloi said police have arrested 12 people in connection with the serial blasts, including an ULFA cadre Sanjib Talukdar of Rangiya who has confessed to have planted the bomb at Bhutnath. Mr Saloi claimed a self styled sergeant major of ULFA’s 709 Battalion Khagen Kalita had drawn the blueprint for the terror attack.

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