3 CRPF personnel among 8 injured, war like stores recovered in J

Srinagar, Jun 16 (UNI) Militants struck yet again in less than 24 hours in north Kashmir when they attacked a Road Opening Party (ROP) with a hand grenade, injuring eight persons, including three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel today.

In other militancy related incidents, four suspected persons were arrested and hideout busted and war-like stores recovered in the Jammu and Kashmir, an official spokesman said.

He said militants lobbed a hand grenade upon a ROP of 176 battalion CRPF near Kanibachi on Sopore - Bandipora Road at 0800 hours this morning.

He said eight people, including three CRPF ROP personnel were injured and a vehicle damaged in the blast. The injured were hospitalised.

Militants yesterday attacked an Army convoy, killing two security personnel and injuring six others on the same road near Degree college Sopore.

Pakistan based Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) had claimed responsibility for yesterday's attack.

Meanwhile, Handwara Police stopped a Matador near a petrol pump at Rajwar, during Naka checking.

During search of vehicle, two hand grenades were recovered from the possession of driver Reyaz Ahmad Bhat and another person Altaf Hassan War.

He said both the persons, later arrested by the police, admitted that they were working for LeT.

A defence ministry spokesman said acting on specific inputs about militants who stored arms and ammunition, troops launched a search operation at Buta-Patheri near Uplona early this morning.

However, after a long search of the vast area, troops finally unearthed the hideout and recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition.

The recovery made from the hideouts included two AK rifles, 2 AK Magazines, 62 rounds of AK ammunition, one pistol, one pen pistol, four Chinese grenades and one Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The operation was still in progress when reports last came in.

In a similar operation in the frontier district of Kupwara, troops had recovered grenades, bombs and explosives on June 14.

Official spokesman said police arrested two suspected persons and recovered one detonator, ten rounds of ammunition,Rs 43,000 and three mobile sets with six SIM cards.

Two more suspected persons were arrested alongwith two hand grenade in Jammu city.

UNI