GUWAHATI: Hours before UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi opened the 33rd National Games, a blast took place at the Kamakhya railway station here on Friday morning. Elsewhere in Upper Assam, the Army found a tin of RDX buried near a railway track.
Nobody was injured in the explosion that took place between the old and new buildings of the Kamakhya station. Though the movement of trains was not disrupted, security has been beefed up in the city.
The police changed the route of Sonia, who arrived here in the afternoon to inaugurate the 10-day sports event. The changes included airlifting Sonia from the airport to the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium at Sarusajai on the outskirts of the city.
The explosion came as a surprise because the area was repeatedly scanned by the Army and policemen over the past few days. The station was used to pick up sportspersons from various parts of the country who had arrived here for the Games. This was done to avoid the rush at the Guwahati railway station.
On Wednesday, a police officer had received a call from a person claiming to be Ulfa 'commander-in-chief' Paresh Barua who said two programmable timer devices had been planted on the railway track near the Kamakhya station.
The caller said Ulfa should not be blamed for any blast because it had withdrawn its Games boycott call. Following this, a six-km stretch along the tracks from Kamakhya to Bharalumukh towards the Guwahati station was scanned on Thursday night. But the explosives were not found anywhere.
However, the railways terminated all trains at Rangiya, 60 km west of Guwahati, after the phone call. In Upper Assam, the Army recovered 12 kg of RDX packed in a tin and planted near railway tracks at Mamoroni in the Digboi police station area.