A timely detection by an alert roadside ice-cream vendor helped cops to save a crowded locality in the main business hub in Guwahati city on Thursday night from the impact of a powerful bomb blast triggered by suspected militants from the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland.

Police informed that they were alerted by an ice-cream vendor who spotted an unclaimed bag near Sani Temple in Fancy Bazar area in Guwahati at around 9 pm on Thursday night.

A mobile team of police immediately rushed to the spot and covered the unclaimed bag suspected to be containing explosives with sand bags and blankets after sanitizing the area.

As a result, no one was injured and there was no damage done to property when the bomb (a timer device) went off after few minutes.

Police suspects involvement of the banned NFB behind the blast, as there were intelligence inputs about the outfit's bid to trigger blasts in the state to avenge the arrest of its chairman Ranjan Daimary alias D R Nabla.

The outfit had triggered an explosion on July 8 last on railway tracks and derailed Guwahati-Kolkata Garibrath, killing a 7-year-old boy and injuring 13 others.

The outfit recently warned people against traveling in government buses and trains which, they said, would be targets for bomb blasts.

It was the NDFB that had triggered the deadly October 30 serial blasts in Assam in 2008, that killed 90 persons and injured over 400.