SRINAGAR, 15 November 2006 — Even as the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan began talks in New Delhi to further improve relations between the two countries, militants carried out two powerful explosions targeting an army convoy and a security force camp, injuring 29 persons including four army troopers, four paramilitary soldiers and 21 civilians.
Police said yesterday evening that militants fired a rifle grenade at a paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in the heavily populated Karan Nagar area of summer capital Srinagar before detonating an explosive laden Maruti car which had been parked on the road outside the camp.
“Three CRPF troopers, two local policemen and 16 civilians, most of them shopkeepers in the area, sustained injuries because of shattered glass and fixtures. The militants first fired a rifle grenade toward the camp probably trying to attract out the security forces. They later detonated an already parked explosive-laden car. It was providential that nobody came out in anticipation of the militant tactics,” said S.M. Sahai, Kashmir’s inspector general of police.
The car was blown to smithereens. The blast triggered high tension in the area.
A senior police officer said militants carried out a powerful land mine explosion at Khanpora locality in north Kashmir’s Baramulla town, 56 kilometers from capital city Srinagar, when an Indian Army convoy passed on the strategic Srinagar-Uri highway.
“Seven persons including four army troopers and three civilians were wounded when militants exploded a land mine they had planted besides an electric pole in Khanpora area of Baramulla town on the Srinagar-Uri highway yesterday afternoon. The injured army troopers include a major and three soldiers,” said Sheikh Junaid, additional superintendent of police, Baramulla district.
All the injured were removed to the Baramulla hospital for treatment.
The massive explosion led to disruption of traffic on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway. The area was searched by police and security forces.
Rebel group Hizbul Mujahedeen, which wants Kashmir to join Pakistan, claimed responsibility for both attacks in calls to local news agencies.
Hizb and other militant groups routinely call local news agencies to make claims on attacks that cannot be independently verified.
India has hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir, where militants have waged a separatist insurgency that has claimed at least 44,000 lives since 1989.
India says Pakistan arms and trains Kashmir militants as part of a proxy war.
The two sides have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.
Kashmir Separatists to Meet
Top Pakistan Diplomat
Separatists opposed to Indian rule in Kashmir said yesterday they would meet with Pakistan’s foreign secretary, in India for talks with his counterpart that include the disputed region.
“Our leaders will be meeting with Riaz Mohammed Khan in New Delhi this (yesterday) evening,” said Shahid ul-Islam, the spokesman for the moderate faction of the region’s main separatist alliance, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Syed Ali Geelani, the head of a hard-line faction of the group which supports rebels who want to join the territory with Pakistan, is also scheduled to meet Khan.
Geelani has been critical of peace talks between the two sides, which began in 2004, because they had not directly involved Kashmiris. The militants have waged an insurgency that has claimed more than 44,000 lives since 1989, according to Indian records. Separatists say the toll is double the official figure.
