SRINAGAR, 9 July 2006 — A former opposition National Conference (NC) legislator was among five persons killed when militants attacked the former state tourism minister in her south Kashmir Kulgam hometown yesterday afternoon.
Police said 40 people including the former minister and four policemen were wounded in the attack at Kulgam, 75 kms from here in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
They said militants lobbed a powerful hand grenade at Sakina Ittoo, former NC tourism minister and a sitting legislator of the state when she came out of a local shrine after paying respects there. “Ghulam Nabi Dar, the former NC legislator from Kulgam assembly constituency was killed along with four other persons while 40 others were wounded including Itoo in this explosion,” said G.A. Peer, Anantnag district magistrate.
The injured include Sakina and four of her bodyguards while the others are civilians. Peer said 26 seriously injured persons were referred by attending doctors in Kulgam to Srinagar city for specialized treatment.
Sakina a senior leader of the opposition NC escaped several militant attacks in past four years and is a sitting member of the state legislature.
Itoo had caught security officials off guard by visiting the shrine, a senior police officer said. “She was to address a rally at a neighboring village where we had made adequate security arragements,” he said.
Sakina’s father Wali Mohammad Ittoo, who was also a senior NC leader and former speaker of the legislative assembly, was gunned down by militants in the winter capital of Jammu in 1994.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad last week disclosed that trans-border infiltration had increased during the last three months and it had been three to four times more than in the corresponding period during last three years.
The entire south Kashmir Kulgam town was closed after the attack as senior officials rushed to the blast site.
