View source for Brahmaputra Mail train bombing

{{Short description|Bombing of passenger train in India}}
{{No footnotes|date=February 2024}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Use Indian English|date=January 2016}}

The '''[[Brahmaputra Mail]] train bombing''' was a terrorist attack on a train travelling in [[Western Assam]] in Eastern India on 30 December 1996. The bomb wrecked three carriages of the train and derailed six more, killing at least 33 people.

The bomb was of unknown composition, and had been left next to the track between [[Kokrajhar]] and [[Fakiragram]] stations. It is likely the bomb was detonated by a remote-controlled device, and timed to cause maximum destruction, as the ''Brahmaputra Mail'' passenger service to New Delhi went past at high speed.

Official reports claimed that 33 people were killed in the explosion, but the remote region in which the blast occurred and government desires to minimize the impact of the attack has led some commentators to question this figure. Some have claimed that 100 fatalities is a more likely figure.

The Indian government blamed the attack on a local separatist organisation, the [[Bodo Security Force]], although there has been no claim of responsibility.

This was the first major incident involving Brahmaputra Mail, with a second occurring three years later in the [[Gaisal train disaster]].

==See also==
* [[List of terrorist incidents, 1996]]
*[[2014 Chennai train bombing]]
*[[2006 Mumbai train bombings]]
*[[Jnaneswari Express train derailment]]
*[[List of railway accidents and incidents in India]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* {{cite book|last1=Asthana|first1=N. C.|last2=Nirmal|first2=Anjali|title=Urban Terrorism: Myths and Realities|date=2009|publisher=Pointer Publishers|isbn=9788171325986|page=171|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8EqWnqdsgZMC&q=Brahmaputra+Mail+train+bombing&pg=PA171|language=en}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20071004223145/http://www.pathfinder.com/Asiaweek/97/1226/newsmap/india.html Short piece on the bombing]

{{coord missing|Assam}}
{{1996 railway accidents}}

[[Category:Improvised explosive device bombings in 1996]]
[[Category:Mass murder in 1996]]
[[Category:Railway accidents in 1996]]
[[Category:Terrorist incidents in India in 1996]]
[[Category:December 1996 in India]]
[[Category:December 1996 crimes]]
[[Category:1990s in Assam]]
[[Category:Terrorism in Assam]]
[[Category:Gowda administration]]
[[Category:Train bombings in India]]
[[Category:Railway accidents and incidents in Assam]]
[[Category:20th-century mass murder in India]]


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