‘Blast’ in Guwahati as northeast defies rebels’ Republic Day boycott call

Defiance of extremist boycott, Republic Day celebrations in northeastern States marred by ULFA(I) "blast" claim.

Guwahati

People across eight northeastern States defied a boycott call by some extremist groups, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent), to celebrate the country’s 76th Republic Day on Sunday (January 26, 2025).

An aberration in the festival-like atmosphere was a “bomb blast” the ULFA(I) claimed to have detonated at a truck parking lot in the Beharbari area on the outskirts of Guwahati in the morning. Another bag, suspected to contain an improvised explosive device, was found at the Inter-State Bus Terminus nearby.

The police downplayed the outlawed outfit’s claim. “It was a loud sound, not an explosion. We have launched an operation to catch the miscreants involved,” Guwahati’s Commissioner of Police, Partha Sarathi Mahanta said.

Earlier, the Paresh Baruah-led ULFA(I) claimed it carried out blasts in Guwahati and other parts of Assam “not to harm anyone but send a message to the people to not participate in occupational India’s Independence Day and Republic Day programmes in the future”.

In an email, a spokesperson of the group said the “blast” was also to remind New Delhi of what it was capable of doing on a larger scale.

Adhering to a decades-old template, the ULFA(I) and some other extremist groups in the northeast called for the boycott of the Republic Day celebrations. They have often struck on or before January 26 and August 15 to show they mean business. The goriest of such attacks was on August 15, 2004, killing 13 people, including 10 children, in eastern Assam’s Dhemaji.