Srinagar: One was killed and thirteen others including a traffic policeman were wounded when a militant exploded a hand grenade at Jehangir Chowk, a busy intersection of Srinagar, on Thursday evening.
The police and witnesses said that a young man tossed the grenade towards a CRPF party at 6 pm but it missed the target and fell on the road and exploded, injuring 13 passersby and a traffic policeman.
One of the civilians died in hospital later. He has been identified as Maqsood Ahmed Shah, a resident of Kashmir’s central district of Budgam. A statement issued by the police said, “In the terrorist attack fourteen persons including a traffic policeman were injured.
They were shifted to Sri Maharaj Hari Singh Hospital where one of them succumbed to his injuries.” Meanwhile, an alliance of key separatist leaders- Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik- has called for a shutdown in Kashmir during the visit of home minister, Rajnath Singh, on September 10.
Mr. Singh will be visiting all the three regions of Jammu and Kashmir for three days from September 9 to hold a series of meetings to review the prevailing law and order situation and review various development projects and schemes with local authorities. The alliance in a statement said, “By observing the general strike, the people of Kashmir will show to the world community and the Indian leadership that by using military might against them or harassing their true leadership the genuine peoples’ movement in Kashmir cannot be crushed.”
It alleged that it was the home ministry which is running the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir directly from New Delhi and that the state government is only playing a “stooge”.
Meanwhile, two porters working for the Army were injured in the firing by the Pakistani troops in their latest ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch sector on Thursday, the officials said. “The Indian Army responded to the Pakistani firing strongly and effectively, forcing the latter to stop the firing within ten minutes,” they added.
