46 Killed in Attacks in Northeast India; Officials Suspect Separatists

A wave of bombings and shootings killed 46 people Saturday in two states in India’s remote and turbulent northeast, authorities said, underscoring the continued threat from separatist groups that have battled the government for decades.

In the town of Dimapur in the state of Nagaland, near-simultaneous bombings on a crowded railroad platform and in a marketplace killed 26 people and wounded scores.

In the state of Assam, separate bombings and shootings killed at least 20 people, including 11 who died when gunmen opened fire on a crowded marketplace in a small town near the border with Bangladesh. Police blamed the massacre on tribal guerrillas fighting for an independent homeland in Assam.

Police said the attacks in Nagaland and Assam appeared to be unrelated, but both took place on a day India was marking the birth anniversary of independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi.

India’s mountainous northeast is home to dozens of underground groups, some fighting for greater autonomy or statehood and others for secession. The groups accuse the federal government of plundering the region’s rich resources and neglecting the local economy.

The attack in Nagaland, on the border with Myanmar, was the deadliest since the main rebel group in the state agreed to a cease-fire in 1997. The state’s Naga tribes are predominantly Christian, and many members feel little connection with mostly Hindu India.

Naga rebels launched India’s oldest insurgency almost half a century ago and have prevented the government from opening the oil-rich region to energy development.

Janardhan Singh, the police superintendent in Dimapur, said the Nagaland bombings appeared to be intended to undermine negotiations with the rebels.

Within hours of the bombings, neighboring Assam was rocked by a series of attacks, including the marketplace massacre and five bombings in other parts of the state. The town of Boingagoan was hit by two simultaneous explosions, one of which killed two people. Several separatist groups are fighting for an independent homeland in Assam, a hilly, forested region known for its tea plantations and mineral deposits.

In August, a powerful bomb killed at least 16 people, many of them schoolchildren, as they assembled for an Independence Day parade on the grounds of a college in Assam.

India’s home minister, Shivraj Patil, told India’s private NDTV news channel that he would fly to Nagaland today to assess the situation. “The blast was very big,” he said.

“For seven years, Nagaland had experienced peace. This kind of thing had not happened. We shall have to see who is involved in it.”