SRINAGAR, India, 12 July 2006 — As many as eight persons were killed and 42 others wounded in five serial grenade explosions carried out by suspected militants in high security civil lines area of Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar yesterday. Police said the first explosions occurred at the Badyari Chowk in the tourist hub of Dalgate area where militants lobbed a grenade that exploded inside a minibus carrying Amarnath Cave Shrine-bound people from Calcutta, capital of the West Bengal state.
In the bloodiest of the attacks blamed on separatist rebels, six tourists including five women were killed and 15 people wounded when a grenade blasted a minibus in Srinagar’s main tourist district. A spokesman for the police control room said the injured included bystanders near the minibus. All of the tourists were from India’s West Bengal state. The dead included a mother, her son and her daughter-in-law.
“Three Bengalis were killed on the spot while the fourth one succumbed to injuries en route to the hospital. Two more critically wounded pilgrims died in hospital late this afternoon. Twelve others including six pilgrims were wounded in the attack,” a senior police officer said here. The second grenade explosion occurred at the Regal Chowk area of Residency Road in the city when militants threw a grenade that exploded under a Maruti car bearing registration plate of Haryana state.
“Four occupants in the car including two males, one female and a child were injured in this explosion who have been admitted to city’s SMHS hospital for treatment. All of them are tourists from Haryana state,” said the senior police officer. Two more grenade explosions occurred in quick succession, one at the Lal Chowk area near the Clock Tower and the other in the nearby Abi Guzar locality.
“One laborer belonging to Bihar and an unidentified person were killed in the Lal Chowk explosion while eight others sustained splinter injuries,” the officer said Seven persons including two US citizens were injured in the Abi Guzar grenade explosion this afternoon. The two US citizens were presently visiting their relatives in Kashmir. Identified as Hena Jan, 4, and Sabiha Jan, 37, they are being treated in SMHS hospital here.
The fifth explosion took place inside the taxi stand at the Tourist Reception center in the city in which eleven civilians were injured. The taxi drivers at the tourist reception center caught a person immediately after the explosion who they claimed had been seen by them throwing the grenade. The arrested person identified as Muhammad Afzal Rather, who belongs to the north Kashmir Sumbal area was later handed over to the local police.
“I saw a huge orange flash coming out of the bus with a loud explosion,” Shabir Ahmad, a shopkeeper who witnessed the attack on the bus, told Reuters. A blood-stained doll was visible in a pool of blood at the scene.
Kashmir’s Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, visiting the injured in hospital, blamed militants. “These people are killers of innocent people. They are enemies of people and we will have to fight them out,” he said. No militant group claimed responsibility and the rebels have condemned such attacks in the past. “They (militants) have started lying. They do such acts and at the end of the day they say they haven’t done it,” said Azad.
—Additional input from agencies
