4 tourists from Gujarat died, 6 wounded in Kashmir

Srinagar, May 25 (UNI) Four tourists-- two children and two teenagers-- from Gujarat were killed and six others wounded, three of them critically, as militants hurled a grenade at a bourns bus on the city outskirts this afternoon.

Official sources said unidentified militants hurled a hand grenade towards a tourist bus at Botapora near Hazratbal, about 12 km from here this afternoon.

The grenade exploded near the bus resulting in on the spot death of two children and injuries to seven others.

The injured were immediately shifted to Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences at Soura where one girl was declared brought dead, while a boy succumbed to injuries in the operation theatre.

The dead were identified as Fennal (8), Robin Rakesh (8, Kishna (15) and Khushboo (18).

The wounded are Bhupali, Shiv Bhopan Kumar, Ratnesh Kumar, Mormeen, Hemmat and driver Ratnesh Naveen. The condition of Bhupali was stated to be critical.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) said the blast had occured when a tourist bus from Jammu was on way to Mughal garden.

It was not clear whether it was a grenade or IED blast, he said adding, ''we are investigating''.

The tourists had come from Jammu yesterday in a bus.

Official sources said the tourists were on way to Mughal garden Harwan via Hazratbal as the main Boulevard road was closed for security reasons in view of the Prime Minister's two-day visit to the Valley for chairing the Roundtable conference.

This was the second incident in which tourists were involved. On May 23 a tourist from Madhya Pradesh Kanhaiya Lal was killed and four injured in a similar grenade blast near Soura. The tourists were on way to Srinagar from tourist resort of Sonmarg.

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