Militant Attack in Srinagar Kills Five Police Officers
By HEATHER TIMMONS and HARI KUMAR
NEW DELHI Armed militants attacked a police camp near a school in Srinagar, Kashmir, on Wednesday, killing at least five officers and injuring several police and civilians.
The attack was carried out by four armed men at the Central Reserve Police Force camp in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir state, at 10:45 in the morning, officials said. Two attackers were killed, and police are still searching for two more.
It was a suicide attack, Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, told the state assembly. In addition to the five police officers who were killed, three civilians were injured, he said.
In the attack, the militants opened fire on the camp, which was near a school playground. The school was shut for the day, but children from nearby homes were playing cricket on the grounds, officials said.
The militants were carrying ammunition in sports kits, and started hurling grenades at police personnel, an unnamed army official who on the scene told news channel Times Now. The two attackers who were killed appeared not to be local boys, but from across the border, home secretary R. K Singh told journalists, referring to Pakistan.
Azhar Qadri, a journalist who lives about 500 meters from the camp in Bemina, said that he woke up to the sounds of shooting and thuds.
I heard sporadic shooting for about 20-25 minutes, he said. And the thuds sounded like grenades.
The school was closed today, so there was no loss to property or life, the schools principal, Tanzim Wahidi said. None of the schoolchildren or staff were hurt.
We have a residential colony nearby and children come from there into school grounds, he added.
The police have cordoned off roads leading to the camp. About 100 police vehicles, including riot control vehicles, are on the ground.
This was an attack on the peace of Kashmir, Abdul Ghani Mir, the inspector general of police in Kashmir, told journalists.
The attack was the first suicide attack in the region since January 2010, and is likely to ratchet up tension in the area and with neighboring Pakistan. Pakistan and India both claim the Kashmir Valley as their own, disputing the British partition of the region between the two countries in the 1940s.
After several years of relative calm that brought a return of tourism, the region has erupted in protests in recent weeks, after the Indian government executed a local man, Muhammad Afzal, also known as Afzal Guru, for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament. Many in Kashmir believe Mr. Afzal was framed.
At the same time, Indian and Pakistani troops have skirmished on the contested border, resulting in the deaths of several soldiers on both sides.
Betwa Sharma and Malavika Vyawahare contributed reporting.
Militant Attack in Srinagar Kills Five Police Officers - NYTimes.com
