Police in India say they have seized fourteen kilograms of explosives from a bus in the northeastern state of Assam.

The state authorities said the rebel United Liberation Front of Assam -- ULFA -- were attempting to smuggle the explosives into the state to disrupt India's Republic Day celebrations later this month on January-the-twenty-sixth.

The ULFA -- along with seven other rebel groups in the northeast -- has called for a boycott of Republic Day. In a related development, the ULFA has carried out a series of attacks in Assam's tea-growing Dibrugarh district in which nine policemen and a number of civilians have been killed.

Human rights groups say the attacks, and reprisal measures taken by the state police and army, amount to a reign of terror in the region.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service