Militants attack CRPF camp in Kashmir, 7 killed

At least seven people have been killed and as many wounded after militants attacked a camp of the security forces in a residential area in Srinagar, police say, the first such gunfight in the summer capital in the past three years.

A suicide group of militants or the Fidayeen stormed into a CRPF camp at Bemina this morning and killed five personnel.

A senior police officer, Abdul Gani Mir told reporters that the two fidayeen who attacked the camp have also been killed.

The CRPF camp at Bemina is surrounded by the Police Public School and many government buildings.

A 23-year-old armed conflict between separatist militants and security forces that killed tens of thousands in
Kashmir is waning, authorities say, with only occasional attacks on the Indian security forces.

The attack has happened at on a day when the valley is observing a shutdown over a call by separatist who have said they will continue protests until the body of Afzal Guru was returned for burial in the valley.

Guru was hanged and buried at Delhi’s Tihar jail on Feb 9 for plotting an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.

Various militant groups have vowed to avenge Guru’s execution, although no definite conclusions can be drawn that the attack was part of it.

Earlier this month two members of the Indian Reserve Police were killed after militants attacked them while they were in a park in Kashmir valley’s northern town of Handwara .

The Hizbul Mujahideen militant group then told a local news agency that their men had carried out the attack.

No militant group has so far said that its members carried out the fresh attack on Tuesday.

But the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) police, Syed Ahfadul Mujtaba told reporters that the attack “is signature of the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group”.

The Lashkar, one of the front-line militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has claimed series of suicide attacks across the state in the past.


(Free Press Kashmir)