Guwahati, December 19
A team of officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today arrived here to take over the investigation into the October 30 serial blasts that rocked four places in Assam, including Guwahati.
The CBI would also take over the investigation into the ethnic flare-up that left 58 dead and over two lakh homeless in Udalguri and Darrang districts of the state earlier in the same month.
There were allegations that a section of miscreants had hoisted Pakistan flag at a certain place in Udalguri district during the ethnic violence between immigrant Muslim settlers and Bodo tribe community.
The team of CBI officials, led by a DIG rank officer, met senior officials of the Assam police and other security agencies here to start the ground work before initiating the actual investigation, according to an official source. The union government yesterday issued the necessary order for CBI investigation into the two cases in Assam.
The serial blasts that rocked Guwahati, Kokrajhar, Barpeta Road and Bongaigaon in Assam left 93 persons dead, including 54 in Guwahati, and over 500 injured. Assam government had set up a special investigation team (SIT), led by an inspector general of police (IGP), to investigate into the serial explosion.
An all-party meeting convened by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on November 28 recommended the state government to handover the investigation into the serial blasts and the ethnic violence to the CBI.
Earlier, a high-level team of officials from Assam, led by chief secretary P.C. Sharma, DGP G.M. Srivastava and IGP Khagen Sharma, had briefed union home ministry officials in New Delhi about the findings of the investigation in the cases. The team also handed over the all relevant papers, including the consent letter from Assam government, for CBI investigation.
Gogoi earlier stated that the SIT investigation had confirmed involvement of the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in the serial blasts that were plotted and remote-controlled by a third force sitting outside the country. The needle of suspicion is pointed at Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) of Bangladesh.
