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Army major among 6 killed in Kashmir blast

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

At least six persons including an army major were killed and 14 others wounded in two powerful bomb explosions in Jammu and Kashmir in the past 24 hours.

The injured included four soldiers.

The police said that militants bombed a shop at Khiram Sirhama when an army patrol was on a routine duty in the area.

The explosion shook the area, killing five persons on the spot. The victims were identified as Major Ajay Yadav, Nazir Ahmad Rather, his younger brother Qadir Rather, village headman Ghulam Mohi-Ud-Din and Khalil Ahmad Kuka.

Sources said four armymen who had received serious injuries were immediately shifted to a hospital.

No one has yet owned responsibility for the blast.

Senior police and security force officers rushed to the area and searches were conducted. No one has been arrested.

Militants struck for the first time in Jammu city at 2000 hours yesterday. A bomb planted in the main bus stand exploded wounding 11 civilians. One of them -- identified as bus conductor Vijay Kumar -- succumbed to the injuries in the Government Medical College hospital in Jammu early today.

Sources said the police immediately surrounded the area and shifted the injured to a hospital.

The Jammu police conducted raids after the blast and some suspects have been taken into custody.

The security arrangements in the otherwise peaceful Jammu city have been mounted. The police have begun searching all passing vehicles in the city.

Sources said the militants had planted the bomb in a bus parked inside the bus stand.

A red alert has been sounded in the Jammu region.

According to eyewitnesses, the blast was so powerful that five buses parked in the stand suffered extensive damage. Some 'bus body parts were seen flying' due to the impact of the explosion.

Inspector General of Police (Jammu range) Kuldeep Khuda said this morning that some suspects were being taken into custody for interrogation.

Khuda said the militants had been ''trying to activate their subversive designs in Jammu for the past one year but they could not succeed due to the alertness of the police''. To check their activities, a red alert has been sounded in the area, he added.

''The suspects are being interrogated and we would be able to get some important clues about the movements of the militants,'' he said.

Khuda said that ''the police are on high alert and would not allow anti-national elements to carry out any subversive activities in the region''.

Additional reportage: UNI

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