SRINAGAR, 12 September 2003 — A student was killed and 19 civilians and a soldier injured yesterday in a grenade attack in a market in Kashmir, while five more people were killed elsewhere in the region, officials said.
Suspected rebels hurled a grenade at a patrol of the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) in the bustling Lal Chowk commercial area, injuring the 19 bystanders and a trooper, the police said.
Rehana Hamid, a student, died instantly and four other civilians were in a serious condition after the attack, a police official said.
The pro-Pakistan organization, Al-Umar Mujahedin, claimed responsibility for the attack, a provincial news agency said.
The blast follows a similar attack Saturday in a fruit market here that killed seven civilians and injured 36 others.
The front-line Hizbul Mujahedin group apologized on Tuesday for the attack, saying the grenade was intended to eliminate an army brigadier.
Some 135 people have died in Kashmir since the killing of top rebel commander Gazi Baba in Srinagar by BSF troops on Aug. 30.
In more violence a man was shot dead during a fight between militants and the BSF Wednesday near the town of Awantipora, 30 km south of Srinagar, a BSF spokesman said.
Residents alleged the victim was deliberately shot by troopers in an ambush.
Militants shot dead a retired soldier in the southern district of Doda Wednesday, while a civilian was shot dead in the village of Sumbal, on the outskirts of Srinagar, police said.
Indian troops killed two militants in two encounters in southern Poonch district overnight, they said.
Police meanwhile detained Javed Mir, vice chairman of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, and 12 of his supporters when they attempted to protest alleged excesses by security forces, witnesses said.
Minister Quits: Kashmir’s agriculture minister offered his resignation yesterday after media reports linked him to militants, official sources said.
“It is a conscious decision. I do not want to embarrass the coalition government,” Abdul Aziz Zargar told Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, as quoted by official sources.
Local media in Kashmir, wracked by a 14-year insurgency against Indian rule, had linked Zargar to the militants who attacked a Hindu temple in September 2002 in the western state of Gujarat, leaving dead 33 people including the two gunmen.
Police confirmed the militants had been visiting Zargar’s native house in the Kashmir village of Manzgam but denied any links between the rebels and the minister.
Zargar announced his resignation at a convention of his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in his home district of Anantnag, 50 km south of the summer capital Srinagar.
The PDP swept to power last year on promises of starting talks with rebels and end security forces’ abuses in a bid to wind down the insurgency.
The party is in a coalition with India’s main opposition Congress.
