Bongaigaon, May 21: After terrorising Guwahati with bombs on wheels over the past few weeks, militants turned their attention to a colony of Hindi-speaking people in Bongaigaon today.

Like every other day, cobbler Kokila Harijan, 60, was slowly going about the task of opening his shop in the morning when a deafening sound pierced the air and he almost blanked out. When he came to, Kokila found himself lying on the ground with splinter injuries. It transpired that the bomb was strapped to a bicycle on the other side of the wall adjacent to his shop.

Six more persons, three of them students of a Hindi-medium school near the blast site, were wounded. Kokila would have been critically wounded, if not dead, had the wall not come in the way of the splinters. All the wounded persons were taken to the nearest nursing home. Five were discharged after first aid, while Ajoy Kumar Sharma, 12, and Sambhu Saha, 32, were admitted.

Ajoy, a student of class VI at the Hindi M.E. School, said he got up all by himself, went inside the school and washed his wounds before he was taken to the nursing home.

“I had almost reached school when I heard the deafening sound. I cannot remember how I fell on the ground. Since nobody was around when I regained consciousness, I got up and went to the school to wash the blood. My teachers saw me and brought me to this nursing home,” he said from his hospital bed.

Sources in the army said the bomb was activated through an integrated time device.

The explosion was the second in the area since January. Apart from residential buildings and shops, the Bongaigaon BSNL office is located there.

Superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said all entry and exit points had been sealed and security beefed up in and around the town.

“I convened an emergency meeting to review the security measures. Wherever there is need for extra security, we will arrange for it,” he added.

The fact that the blast occurred in a Hindi-speaking neighbourhood has convinced the police that Ulfa is the culprit.

The militant group renewed its campaign against Hindi-speaking people in Dibrugarh and Sivasagar districts last week. The blasts in Guwahati, too, have occurred in commercial areas where the majority of the residents are not originally from the state.