Islamic guerrillas waged at least three attacks on Wednesday in the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, injuring three people, soon after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee arrived for a national conference, police said.
Two blasts went off outside central Srinagar’s fortified telegraph office. In the first one, two traffic policemen were injured by shrapnel from a grenade, a police spokesperson said.
Soon afterward, an armed militant rushed into the adjacent Greenway hotel, which houses the offices of several newspapers, sparking a stand-off with security forces who tried to evict him, police said.
The little-known guerrilla group Al-Malsuran claimed responsibility for the two incidents near the telegraph office and said the fighter who stormed the building was ready to die.
A third blast occurred in the city’s Batmaloo district, seriously injuring a federal trooper deployed there to thwart militant-led attacks during Vajpayee’s two-day stay in Srinagar.
The blasts came two hours after the Indian premier, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and other ministers, arrived for a meeting in Srinagar with leaders of India’s 28 states. — Sapa-AFP