Bomb Kills One In India`s Troubled Northeast

`The bomb was kept on a motorbike`, police officer said.

At least one person was killed and 18 wounded when a bomb went off in India's restive northeastern state of Assam on Tuesday, police said.

Senior police officer D. Deori told Reuters the blast occurred in Jyotikuchi area of Guwahati, Assam's main city, close to where Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee had been due to address an election rally. The rally was subsequently cancelled.

"The bomb was kept on a motorbike," Deori said.

A senior intelligence official told Reuters the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was behind the blast.

"We had information that a group of three to four trained boys of the ULFA has sneaked into the city a couple of days back to create violence ahead of the election," he said.

Mukherjee was campaigning in Guwahati on Tuesday for the ruling Congress party.

More than 80 people were killed in a string of bombings in Assam last year. The attacks were blamed on Islamist militants from neighbouring Bangladesh in league with the ULFA.

The ULFA is among more than two dozen armed groups in India's northeast which are either fighting for an independent homeland or more political autonomy.

They accuse New Delhi of plundering the region's mineral and forest resources, neglecting the local economy and giving them back nothing in return.