Five killed in Kashmir grenade attacks
Five people have been killed and 43 others wounded by multiple grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir’s main city.
Four more people died during two separate gun battles on Friday.
Four of the day’s seven blasts took place within an hour in the busy commercial heart of the summer capital, Srinagar, where a Muslim separatist revolt has raged against Indian rule since 1989, police said.
“Five people have died in these attacks,” a police spokesman said.
The attackers were targeting security forces but wounded passing civilians, he said.
A fifth attack wounding five people took place at Dal Gate on the shores of Dal Lake, a popular tourist spot, police said.
After nightfall, yet another attack took place in Srinagar’s old city, when suspected fighters lobbed grenades, apparently at a passing police patrol, injuring two policemen and one civilian, said Farooq Zargar, a local police officer.
A total of some 43 people were wounded on Friday, including 14 police and paramilitary men, a Kashmir police spokesman said.
Srinagar’s main hospital was flooded by frantic relatives seeking information about the victims.
A local news agency, Current News Service reported that four Muslim separatist groups separately claimed responsibility for the earlier attacks. The groups include Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen, Al-Mansurain, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Islamic Front.
Kashmir is in the grip of a 16-year-old insurgency against Indian rule that has killed more than 44,000 people.
A campaign being spearheaded by the armed groups since 1989 and the tough Indian military response to it has claimed thousands of lives besides causing widespread destruction across the state.