Militants pretending to be players and hiding automatic rifles and grenades in cricket kit bags opened fire on a makeshift CRPF camp, killing five jawans and injuring six others, at Bemina, a Srinagar suburb, on Wednesday. Both assailants were killed in retaliatory fire, while four civilians caught in the crossfire were injured, the police and witnesses said.
The slain jawans’ colleagues, while returning from a city hospital after donating blood, allegedly fired on civilian bystanders at two places, Noor Bagh and Zoonimar, killing a 22-year-old and wounding another civilian. The police said the CRPF vehicle from which firing took place was attacked with stones and missiles at Zonimar here. The National Conference called the youth’s killing “cold blooded murder”, and said the victim was a party supporter. Assembly Speaker Mubarak Gul said the slain youth was a close associate, and demanded a judicial inquiry into the shooting.
As tensions rose, indefinite curfew was again imposed in the whole of Srinagar city.
Kashmiri militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack on the CRPF, and threatened more such actions in future.
Union home secretary R.K. Singh said the gunmen were probably from Pakistan. “Prima facie the terrorists don’t appear to be locals, but from across the border... The first impression is that they were possibly from Pakistan,” he said in New Delhi, adding the government had some inputs on the entry of four militants into Srinagar, and the forces had been alerted.
“We had inputs four terrorists have entered... Two have been killed. There might be two more (terrorists) out there,” he added.
J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, intervening in the Assembly in Jammu, said a “fidayeen attack” had taken place at the Bemina CRPF camp. He then rushed to Srinagar to meet senior Army, police, CRPF, intelligence and civil administration officials.
The police said the attack, the first in three years, was at 10.45 am after the militants reached the playground near the Police Public School along a highway at Bemina. They quickly pulled out weapons from their kits and then targeted a posse of CRPF jawans. The paramilitary personnel were preparing for yet another general strike in the Valley seeking the return of the mortal remains of Afzal Guru to Kashmir.
Their colleagues who were standing guard nearby shot dead both assailants, officials said.