SRINAGAR, 20 March 2008 — At least 24 people were wounded in a massive blast here yesterday evening. Police said militants carried out the explosion in Jahangir Chowk.
The explosive device appeared to have been placed inside a police booth that sat at the end of a major overpass near the high court and the city’s business district, said senior police official Afadul Mujtaba.
A wall of the overpass collapsed in the blast, sending piles of concrete onto cars and commuters, shattering nearby shop windows and sending commuters fleeing in panic.
A man who identified himself as a spokesman for Indian Kashmir’s largest rebel group, Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, said his group planted the bomb, which targeted a paramilitary vehicle.
“But unfortunately some civilians were injured in the incident,” the man, who gave his name as Khalilur Rehman, said in a telephone call to Kashmir News Service, a local news agency.
The rebel group claimed the vehicle was destroyed in the blast, but military spokesman Sudhanshu Singh denied it.
Altaf Ahmed, a lawyer, was boarding a bus after leaving his nearby office when the bomb went off. “It was a deafening explosion,” he said.
“We are ascertaining whether the explosion was caused by IED (improvised explosive device) or whether it was a car bomb explosion,” said Deputy Inspector General of Central Reserve Police Force M.P. Natheal.
