One dead, 14 injured in blast in India's restive northeast

GUWAHATI, India (AFP) — At least one person was killed and 14 wounded in a powerful explosion Wednesday at a crowded marketplace in India's insurgency-hit northeast state of Assam, police said.

Initial reports said six had been injured in the blast in Tezpur, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Assam's main city of Guwahati but police later updated the casualty figures.

Earlier, a police spokesman in Tezpur told AFP by phone that "the bomb was strapped to a bicycle and went off in a market area.

"The injured were taken to local hospitals with multiple wounds," he said, adding the victims were shoppers and vendors.

Police blamed the explosion on the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a banned rebel group fighting for an independent homeland since 1979.

More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to the insurgency in Assam over the past three decades.