A major disaster was averted in Assam on Saturday with the recovery of a powerful plastic bomb near Rangiya wholesale market, on the eve of the bi-weekly market in Kamrup district.

An anonymous caller rang up the army's 107 engineering regiment around 6.30 am and informed that a bomb had been planted in the market, defence sources said.

A search operation was launched by the Army with the help of the police and the improvised explosive devise was recovered from inside a water pipe near the storeroom of the water resource department adjacent to the market, sources said.

The bomb was targeted at Sunday's market, where thousands of buyers and sellers converge from the district and neighbouring Baksa district, besides bordering areas of Bhutan, they said, adding that the bomb was later defused.

Buyers and sellers trade grocery items, clothes and vegetables at the bi-weekly market.

A bomb had exploded in the market on January 26 last year, killing one person and injuring 11 others.

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