SRINAGAR, 7 September 2003 — A car bomb aimed at an army convoy killed at least seven people and wounded 37 at a fruit market in Kashmir yesterday.
The pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahedeen group claimed responsibility for the blast.
Police said a senior army officer and five soldiers were among the wounded in the explosion in Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar. They said an army convoy, which was passing through the highway near the market, was the target of the blast. “The bomb was planted in a car and parked near the gate of the fruit market,” K. Rajendran, Kashmir’s inspector general of police, said.
The market located on Kashmir’s major highway, is one of the main fruit markets in India-controlled Kashmir, which is a major apple-growing region.
A Hizbul Mujahedeen spokesman called newspaper offices in Srinagar and said the group also set off explosions in the Pulwama and Doda areas of south Kashmir. “We inflicted heavy casualties on the Indian security forces,” the spokesman said.
Scores of men and women wailed at the scene of the car bombing, which was littered with blood-soaked shoes of the victims.
