Strike brings Assam to a halt

"The strike has affected normal life across the state as the issue on which the call for a shutdown was given is an emotional one," a senior police official said.

In Sunday's attack, which also wounded 21 people, a bomb shook a college ground in the remote town of Dhemaji, 460 kilometres (285 miles) east of Assam's state capital Guwahati, during a parade.

"The response to the strike has been spontaneous. Everyone is angry over the killings," Amiya Bhuyan, general secretary of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), which called the dawn to dusk strike, told AFP.

AASU volunteers stood guard in various places to enforce the strike.

A senior police official, meanwhile, told AFP the Assam government was mulling plans to buy Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detectors from Israel.

"The surveillance systems we are using to detect explosives are obsolete. We need advanced sensors like those used in Israel," said the official, adding tha| the Assam government had urged the defence and home ministry to take up the matter with Israel.

Assam governor Ajai Singh, a retired army commander, has thrown his weight behind the proposal.

"Surveillance gadgets made in Israel are among the best in the world and we must upgrade our system to fight militancy," said Singh.

The army pointed out that the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) which has claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack had buried slabs of explosives about one metre (three feet) under the Dhemaji college grounds days before the parade.

At least three of the 21 people injured in the blast are in a serious condition, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told reporters.

"We have asked the authorities to shift a seriously injured girl to New Delhi for specialised treatment. She has injuries in both eyes," he said.

The ULFA has not responded to government appeals to end its campaign for an independent homeland. More than 10,000 people have died in insurgency in Assam in the past two decades.