Powerful car bomb explosion rocks Srinagar, 20 wounded

Srinagar, Nov 14 (UNI) As Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan were engaged in crucial talks in New Delhi, militants triggered a powerful car bomb explosion minutes after they had carried out a grenade attack in a bid to blow up a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp here today, wounding at least 20 people.

The injured included 12 security personnel, police said.

Police said militants first lobbed a hand grenade towards a CRPF battalion headquarters in the high-security Karan Nagar area here this afternoon.

And when the security personnel came out to search the area, militants detonated an IED fitted in a Maruti car parked just outside the CRPF camp.

Police said at least 20 people, including 8 policemen and four CRPF personnel, were wounded in the blast, the impact of which was heard several kilometers away.

Some of the wounded have been identified as DSP Shahzada of 4th battalion of the Indian Reserve Police (IRP), Bilal Ahmed Kuchay, Mudasirah, Irshad Mir, Sheba Jan, Imran Sheikh, Owais Pampori, Ali Sheikh, Mushtaq Ahmed, Maqsood Ahmed, C Sharma, Ram Naresh Yadav, Joginder Singh, Radha Sharma and Gulwant Rai.

The injured were hospitalised, police said, adding of them, 14 were later discharged after first aid.

However, a CRPF spokesman told UNI that it was difficult to say whether the IED was kept in a parked car or a scooter.

He said the main aim of the militants seemed to force out the security personnel and then trigger the blast to cause major damage.

Inspector General of Police (Kashmir) S M Sahai told reporters near the site of the blast that five state police, two CRPF personnel and eight civilians were wounded in the blast.

He said security forces and police have launched operation to nab the militants responsible.

A UNI correspondent who visited the area saw damaged window panes of nearby houses. The blast was so powerful that its sound was heard in the entire down town and civil line areas.

The CRPF also conducted search operation in the nearby houses but the militants had managed to escape, sources said.

The area has been declared high security as a number of security forces' camps and the offices of top CRPF officials besides the headquarters of the IGP and other senior police officials are located there.

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