Trucker killed in Anantnag; 19 wounded in Sopore blast
SRINAGAR: A truck driver was killed by suspected militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Monday, the police said, a day before a delegation of European Union MPS visits the Valley.
Narayan Dutt, a resident of Katra in Udhampur district, was fired upon by the militants in the evening in the Kanilwan area of Bijbehara in the south Kashmir district, a police official said. Dutt died on the spot, he added.
The police said gunmen targeted the driver who was waiting for goods to be loaded.
A senior police official, who was nearby, rushed to the scene of the incident and managed to save two other truck drivers who were in the vicinity, the police said. Security forces rushed to the spot after the attack and cordoned off the area.
In the past few days, militants killed three truck drivers, a trader from Punjab and a migrant labourer in Kashmir.
In a separate attack, at least 19 people were wounded in a grenade attack in north Kashmir’s Sopore town on Monday evening.
Sopore superintendent of police, Javid Iqbal, said, “The target of the blast was civilians who were doing their routine business in the bus stand, especially selling merchandise on handcarts.”
Iqbal said the nearest police post from the spot of the attack is more than 300 metres away. “At the time of the attack, no security personnel were deployed at the bus stand. It was a deliberate attack on the civilians as we have also assessed the footage of the attack.’’ “Six injured people were referred to Srinagar hospitals for treatment,” he said.
Doctors said the condition of all the injured referred to Srinagar
is stable. “Only one woman has received serious injuries in the blast,’’ said a health official.
The locals, however, said the grenade was hurled on security forces near the general bus stand and missed the intended target, and exploded on the roadside causing injuries to 19 civilians.
The police and army reached the area and started a search operation near the bus stand, locals said. This was the fifth grenade attack in Kashmir in the last one month.