SUSPECTED rebels killed a prisoner and wounded four police officers and a passer-by in Indian Kashmir when they lobbed a grenade at a police vehicle on Wednesday (July 17), police said.
The vehicle was hit while passing through a crowded market in the Batamaloo area of the state capital Srinagar. A passer-by also suffered injuries in the attack.
Shakeel Ahmad Ksana, a prisoner who was being shifted to a jail in the vehicle, died while receiving treatment in a local hospital, a police statement said.
“It was a random attack on police. No one has been arrested for the attack,” local police official Afadul Mujtaba told reporters.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by a UN-monitored boundary known as the Line of Control. But both countries claim the Himalayan region in full and have fought two of their three wars over the territory.
Armed violence in Kashmir has declined during the last decade but recent months have witnessed more attacks by separatist militants on Indian forces.
On June 24 heavily armed rebels ambushed an army convoy and killed eight soldiers on the outskirts of Srinagar, on the eve of a rare visit to the region by Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
About a dozen armed rebel groups have been fighting Indian forces in Kashmir since 1989 for independence or merger with Pakistan. The fighting has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians dead.
