The Hindu : Front Page : 6 killed, 20 injured as car bomb explodes near Srinagar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 03, 2005

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6 killed, 20 injured as car bomb explodes near Srinagar

Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR: Hours before Ghulam Nabi Azad was sworn in Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, a militant blew himself up in an explosives-laden car on the outskirts of Srinagar, killing five others and injuring 20, on Wednesday. The Jaish-e-Mohammad has owned responsibility for the attack.

H. K. Lohia, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Kashmir range, said the suicide bomber was going on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway, when a policeman asked him to stop at the Nowgam Bypass Chowk at 11.15 a.m. But he blew himself up.

Besides the militant, constable Nisar Ahmed and four civilians — Saleema Akhtar of Gulshan Nagar, Mohammed Iqbal Wani of Kanipora, 12-year-old Irshad Ahmad Dar and a yet-to-be-identified person — were killed.

The body of the militant, identified by the Jaish-e-Mohammad as Mohammed Mubashir Hussain of Rawalkot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, was blown many metres away and the car smashed to pieces. Parts of the vehicle were recovered 300 metres away. The injured were taken to hospitals, where the condition of eight is critical.

A number of vehicles at the spot were damaged and the windowpanes of houses broken in the impact of the blast, which occurred near the private residence of the former Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

The police said RDX must have been used. They had apprehensions of militants striking in the city in view of the swearing-in ceremony. "The bomb is our first gift to Ghulam Nabi Azad," Abu Quduma, who claimed to be a Jaish-e-Mohammad spokesman, told the CNS news agency.

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