Blast in Kashmir mosque injures 10
Shopian/Kashmir: At least 10 people were injured in a suspected grenade explosion outside a mosque while unknown persons hurled a grenade at a Hizbul Mujahideen commander’s house in south Kashmir’s Shopian district Thursday morning.
Police officials said the grenade was kept on roadside in a steel glass after removing its pin. Someone touched it, triggering the blast at aroun 6 in the morning.
Abdul Gani Dar, a wounded 75-year-old, said a tumbler lying in the mosque complex blew up with a deafening sound as a caretaker picked it up while people were leaving the area.
Four people with multiple shrapnel wounds were taken to a hospital in Srinagar, police said. Police are investigating, but no one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Police defused a similar device in the area on Thursday in a house belonging to a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest militant group in Kashmir, said Gillani.
The explosive device went off as people were filing out of the mosque’s main prayer hall in the village of Trenz, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-held portion of the disputed territory, police officer Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said.
Unrest in the Valley
Late Wednesday, insurgents staged two attacks. In Trenz, militants wounded an Indian army soldier who was traveling with other soldiers in a car in the rural area. In Srinagar, meanwhile, rebels threw a grenade at government forces outside a police station and injured at least three police and a paramilitary soldier.
