One dead, 32 injured in grenade strike in Jammu bus stand; attacker tasked by Hizb arrested
Jammu, Mar 7: A grenade explosion rocked the crowded general bus stand in the heart of Jammu city on Thursday killing a teenager and injuring 32 others and within hours a man whom the police said was tasked by terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen to carry out the attack was arrested.
The third grenade attack by terrorists on Jammu bus stand since May last comes just three weeks after the Pulwama terror strike on February 14 that killed 40 CRPF jawans bringing India and Pakistan on brink of war.
The grenade attack was carried out inside the general bus stand area around 11.50 am resulting in the death of 17-year-old Mohammad Sharik and injuries to 32 others including 11 from the Valley, 10 from Jammu and others from outside the state, police said.
Sharik, a resident of Haridwar in Uttarakhand, succumbed to splinter injuries in hospital, police said. The condition of four persons, two of whom underwent surgeries, was stated to be critical.
Inspector General of Police, Jammu, M K Sinha told reporters that Yasir Javed Bhat, a resident of Khanpora-Dassein village in Kulgam, was tasked by Hizbul Mujahideen district commander, Kulgam, Farooq Ahmad Bhat alias "Umar" to carry out the attack.
Bhat, who had reached Jammu along with the grenade only this morning after he left Kulgam last night, was fleeing back after the attack when he was arrested by alert policemen at Nagrota in the outskirts of the city, he said.
Producing Bhat before the media persons, Sinha termed his arrest as a "major breakthrough".
A parked bus of the state road transport corporation (SRTC) suffered extensive damage in the blast which caused panic among the people.
"The blast occurred on the roadside when there was a huge rush of people. I had come to drop my wife who was going to board a bus to Punjab," said one of the injured, Kuldeep Singh from the Pragwal area of the city.
Singh, who is undergoing treatment along with his wife at Government Medical College(GMC) hospital for injuries, said he felt that somebody hurled something which caused the powerful explosion.
"As soon as we came to know about the grenade blast, the police party swung into action and along with civilians evacuated all the injured and took them to Government Medical College hospital where unfortunately Sharik could not survive despite a surgery," IGP Sinha said.
Immediately after the explosion, people ran for safety and later as the situation returned to normal they evacuated the injured to the hospital.
Police parties along with sniffer dogs and forensic experts rushed to the spot and launched a search operation.
Sinha said special teams were constituted and asked to go into evidence available and work on the leads.
"The teams that were constituted tried assessing from the witnesses as to what they have seen, and the recordings of CCTV camera installed in the area were also seized.
"Based on the oral testimony of the eye-witnesses and the CCTV coverage, we were able to identity a suspect who was wearing Jean jackets and carrying red rucksack," he said.
Sinha said immediately all the checkpoints of Jammu were alerted and asked to look for any person with the given description trying to move out of the city.
"One team led by Sub-divisional police officer Nagrota during checking at Ban toll plaza found this boy who was going out of Jammu and was apprehended," he said, adding he was put to questioning and confessed the crime.
The IGP said he had started from Kulgam with the grenade only yesterday and reached Jammu this morning. "After doing this heinous act, he tried to escape (back)," he said, adding "we are ascertaining his age".
"Whenever there is heightened state of alert, we strengthen checking and frisking but there is always a possibility of someone slipping through and this one seems to be a case like that," the IGP said.
The officer said there was no specific input about such an attack in the city.
"General inputs are always there and the deployments have been made. We are working on the leads all the time whenever we get inputs but there was nothing specific about this," Sinha said.
"Obviously the intention is always to disturb the communal harmony and peace," he said and requested the people to maintain calm.
"We have only carried out preliminary questioning of the accused so far. What was his specific target and motive behind the grenade attack at the bus stand would emerge once the questioning is complete," he added.
Political parties condemned the grenade attack with the BJP pledging to wipe out terrorism and the Congress expressing concern over security preparedness.
Governor Satya Pal Malik directed the administration to provide best medical assistance to the injured.
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MP cruise boat tragedy: Search ops expanded to trace four missing passengers
Jabalpur (PTI): Army divers and disaster response teams on Saturday expanded their search at Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh to locate a man and three children still missing after the cruise boat tragedy that claimed nine lives two days ago, officials said.
With 28 of the 41 identified passengers onboard the ill-fated cruise boat rescued safely, police are preparing to register an FIR in connection with the accident that occurred at the reservoir in Jabalpur district on Thursday evening, they said.
The search radius has been expanded to 5 km in the backwaters of the Bargi Dam, located downstream of the Narmada River, area sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI.
Nine people drowned in the incident, while 28 were rescued, and efforts are ongoing to trace the missing persons, he said.
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According to the police, more than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, began the search operation at 5 am on Saturday to trace Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, his son Tamil (5), Vijay Soni (6) and Mayuram (5).
Mishra said that an inquest case has been registered and the post-mortem of nine deceased persons has been completed.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will soon register an FIR," he said.
Investigators have said that CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the ill-fated boat, and the names of 41 persons, who boarded the vessel, have been ascertained so far.
Collector Raghvendra Singh confirmed that a search is underway for four missing persons.
The rescue operation, being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local divers, was briefly affected around 9 am due to strong winds.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members after survivors alleged negligence and safety lapses, including failure to provide life jackets.
The government also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, sank during a sudden storm around 6 pm on Thursday, and the wreckage was retrieved from the dam water on Friday, after the rescuers confirmed that there were no more bodies inside.
Eyewitnesses have said that strong winds made the water choppy, prompting passengers to raise an alarm and ask the crew to steer the vessel towards the riverbank.
A survivor alleged negligence by the crew and described a last-minute scramble for life jackets.
