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Car Bomb Kills Nine in Indian Kashmir
A powerful car bomb exploded in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar on Thursday, killing nine people and wounding 25, including journalists, police said.
It was the first major attack since the frontline Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen ended a 15-day ceasefire in the rebellion-racked Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
"With the impact of the explosion, nine people were killed on the spot, and 25 others injured, including five photographers," an Indian police official said.
He said eight policemen were among the dead.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Witnesses said the explosion came five minutes after a grenade attack at around 12.30 p.m (0700 GMT).
Security personnel and journalists rushed to the site of the grenade attack near the State Bank of India, a key landmark in the city, and many of them were caught in the bomb blast that followed.
"When I went to the spot along with colleagues, we saw a crater where the grenade had hit," one journalist said.
"We were being briefed by policemen when a big bang took place and blinded my eyes. Then I saw people running helter-skelter and I saw colleagues bleeding."
Reuters photographer Fayaz Kabli was among those hurt. Doctors said he had suffered shock and splinter injuries in one leg, but he was out of danger.
The bomb, which went off in an Ambassador model car, was believed to have been set off by remote control. It damaged at least five nearby cars.
Shopkeepers in the city pulled down shutters as panic spread.
Peace Initiative Collapses
Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, where a decade of separatist insurgency has left at least 30,000 people dead.
A peace initiative with Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest of the militant groups, collapsed this week after the group called off an unprecedented ceasefire. Hizbul said New Delhi had ignored a deadline for accepting three-way talks, including Pakistan.
New Delhi has said it is ready to talk to all militant groups and has blamed Pakistan for derailing the nascent peace process in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Moslem-majority state.
India security officials said earlier on Thursday that they had resumed operations against the Hizbul Mujahideen.
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