SRINAGAR, 30 July 2005 — Two soldiers were killed and at least 16 persons were wounded in a daring suicide attack by militants in Kashmir’s busiest high security city center Lal Chowk even as paramilitary forces had stepped up security in the summer capital in the wake of last weeks car bomb explosion..
Security forces late yesterday surrounded a hotel in the heart of Srinagar near the Dashnami Akhra temple where the fidayeenare holed up.
But paramilitary forces who have surrounded the area suspect more militants may be hiding in other buildings around Lal Chowk as fire is coming from different directions on the surrounding forces.
All hell broke loose on the city center which was thronged by hundreds of shoppers, commuters and scores of tourists at around 4.30 p.m. yesterday afternoon when suddenly suicide attackers appeared and started firing at security forces located in Lal Chowk.
At least two civilians were injured in the initial attack by the fidayeen, according to police.
This was followed by a powerful explosion outside the state information department office meters away from the present encounter site. A passing police escort vehicle was attacked by the militants with powerful handgrenades.
The explosion destroyed the escort vehicle, raising smoke and flameswhich spread quickly in the overcast sky in the summer capital which was lashed by rains as the guns and grenades roared in the area.
Authorities rushed fire tenders to the spot to douse the raging flames.
Police said the injured included five paramilitary soldiers, two local policemen and six media persons.
The otherwise bustling city center turned into a ghost street minutes after the incident and the only movement that could be seen in the area was of mobile bullet proof bunkers and security forces and police.
All the Lal Chowk shopkeepers could manage to do was to down their shutters and hide behind their stocks inside the shops.
Meanwhile, separatist guerrillas yesterday gunned down a special police officer (SPO) as he was leaving a mosque.
Nisar Teli was killed instantly in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara town in Anantnag district, 45 km from Srinagar, after guerrillas fired at him from close range, police said.
Local police has engaged hundreds of SPOs on a consolidated monthly pay packet to augment the force in its battle against militancy.
Bijbehera town is the hometown of Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and a political stronghold of the ruling People’s Democratic Party.
During the 24 hours, 13 people, including two guerrillas, have been killed in violence across the state.
The slain include six Hindu men who were killed when their throats were slit in the remote Deb village of Rajouri district in Jammu region.
Two local cable television operators were also killed during this period following which cable operators stopped beaming signals to their subscribers across the valley.
