Guwahati, May 26: On the eve of the Tarun Gogoi government's one year in office, the proscribed ULFA today triggered a powerful blast in Guwahati's Athgaon area killing seven persons and injuring 30 others which prompted an irate crowd to pelt stones at police.

Police said the bomb, kept inside an auto-rickshaw near the Marwari Maternity Hospital, went off around 10.45 am killing seven passers-by and shoppers on the spot in the busy commercial area.

The blast also caused an LPG gas cylinder being transported at that time in a cycle-rickshaw, to burst, police said.

Altogether 30 people were injured in the two blasts.

Two vehicles and two auto-rickshaws parked there were damaged, police said.

Chaos prevailed as the people attempted to flee.

Police cordoned off the area and the injured were rescued.

Twenty-two of the injured were admitted to the Gauhati Medical College Hospital, one to the Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Civil Hospital and others at various other private hospitals, police said.

Local people in the area and nearby Fancy Bazar, the commercial hub of the N-E Region, took to the streets to demand police action against the repeated blasts.

The crowd urged the shopkeepers in Fancy Bazar to down their shutters as some of the agitators pelted stones at the police who attempted to pacify them.

The agitators later dispersed, police said.

Macabre scenes were witnessed at the site of the ULFA bomb blast with headless torsos and body parts strewn all over the place and blotches of blood turning the road red.

The body of a cycle-rickshaw puller lay across his vehicle with his head blown to pieces lying below.

The area resembled a war zone with bodies of the victims lying in pools of blood with either their faces, limbs or other body parts ripped off by the blast.

A PTI correspondent who went to the site, saw dismembered legs, arms and torsos of the victims and their sandals, shoes, bits of clothes strewn several metres away under the impact of the explosion.

It was almost impossible to walk on the FC Road, where the bomb exploded, without treading over body parts and splashes of blood.

The explosive went off in an auto-rickshaw killing seven persons and injuring 30 others.

Shards of glass panes from nearby buildings and mangled bill boards were lying all over the place.

Two cars and auto-rickshaws were damaged by the fire triggered by the blast.

The injured, particularly the women, were seen wailing with pain.

They were rushed to hospital with some of them being carried in arms or on pull carts or whatever mode of transport was instantly available.

Even before the arrival of the police and ambulances, the public swung into action to rescue the injured and remove the dead.

In another instance, a major tragedy was averted on Saturday when a powerful bomb was recovered from the Delhi-Guwahati Brahmaputra Mail in lower Assam�s Kokrajhar railway station by the Government Railway Police personnel.

The GRP men on duty at the station found an unclaimed steel box inside a compartment of the train.

They brought it down to the platform and called in the army bomb disposal squad, defence sources said.

Sniffer dogs of the 11 Maratha Regiment were pressed into service and on opening the box a sophisticated live programmable time device, weighing 9 kg, was detected.

The bomb was taken away and defused at a safe place, the sources said adding, the identity of the insurgent outfit that planted the device was not immediately known.

Had the bomb exploded, it could have caused large-scale damage and loss of human lives as the train was filled to full capacity, the sources said.

Train services to and from the station was suspended between 12.30 am and 3 pm.

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