Srinagar/Jammu, October 28
One person was killed and 37 injured when suspected militants hurled a grenade towards the highly guarded Central Telegraph Office (CTO) on the first day of the holy month of Ramzan here this afternoon. The attack comes exactly two months after a suicide attack on the nearby Greenway Hotel killing five persons, including militant-turned-politician Javed Hussain Shah.

The injured included mostly those in queues for depositing their telephone bills at the BSNL head office here. There were also queues of those getting SIM cards of mobile telephones at different counters. The injured, have been shifted to various hospitals here. Of them two are undergoing treatment at the SMHS hospital and two at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS).

One of the injured, Ali Mohammed Joo, succumbed to injuries.

A hitherto little known outfit, Kashmir Freedom Force, has claimed responsibility for the attack, a local news agency here said.

The attack comes on the first day of the holy month of Ramzan, a day after a spokesman of Lashkar-e-Toiba outfit had warned of escalation in “militant activities”. The spokesman, according to local media reports, had also cautioned people to stay away from security installations to avoid becoming targets of their attacks.

In Doda district of Jammu, three jawans of the Army were killed and seven seriously wounded when terrorists triggered on improvised explosive device (IED) at Khilani.

Official reports said two soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) died on the spot, while the third succumbed to injuries in hospital. The injured have been airlifted to the Army Hospital at Udhampur for treatment.

The killed soldiers have been identified as Lance Naik Ajay Kumar and Sepoy Himmat Singh of 10 RR and Sepoy Ashok Kumar Yadav of 4 RR.

The IED planted on the road was exploded by terrorists by some remote control device when an Army convoy was passing through the area in the morning. The soldiers were travelling in a private bus hired by the Army. The vehicle turned turtle under the impact of the explosion killing two jawans, Himmat Singh and Ashok Kumar Yadav, on the spot.

The injured jawans have been identified as Lance Naik Satya Narain (8 RR), Sepoys Banwari Lal, Bir Singh and Vivek Tripathi of 10 RR and Manoj Kumar, Pawan Kumar and Danesh Kumar of 4 RR.

There were indications that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba has ordered its activists to step up violence in J&K.

In a telephonic statement to a Srinagar daily, an LeT activist is learnt to have warned of escalation of their activities.

LeT has turned down the renewed peace initiative of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and described it as an attempt to deceive the people.