A man has been arrested for allegedly hurling a grenade at a busy bus terminal in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, causing the death of one person and injuring another 32, police said.
The grenade rolled under a parked bus at the main bus station in Jammu city before exploding, said inspector general of police Manish Kumar Sinha.
All civilians and injured people in the area were immediately evacuated, and of the 33 people taken to hospital, a 20-year-old man died, Sinha said.
Most of those injured were sitting in the parked bus, which was headed to Uttarakhand.
Some passengers of another bus heading to Punjab were also hurt.
CCTV footage and eyewitness testimonies were used to identify the suspect, and lookout notices were sent to all patrols and posts, leading to his arrest within hours, Sinha said.
“During preliminary questioning, he has admitted to carrying out the attack,” Sinha claimed as the youth stood behind him with his head covered. “It is too early to say if others were involved.”
Sinha said the accused had links with the Hizbul Mujahideen organisation.
“There is an intention to disturb communal peace and harmony,” Sinha had said soon after the blast.
The region has been on edge since a suicide car bomb killed 40 Indian troopers in Kashmir on February 14, sending relations between India and Pakistan into a tailspin.
Kashmiri Muslims were beaten up and threatened in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of country after the attack.
There were fresh reports of two Kashmiri men being attacked on Wednesday in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Police arrested four men seen in a video, which went viral on social media, attacking the two Kashmiri vendors, said Anand Kumar, director general of police “We have assured the men that they would be protected and should continue with their trade,” Kumar said.
Meanwhile the leader of a hardline Hindu group yesterday justified the beating of the two street vendors by his members, saying “suspicious” Kashmiris had to be watched after a deadly bombing in the disputed region.
The assault on the fruit sellers by the saffron-shirted activists has been widely condemned in the country.
The attackers were members of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Dal (VHD) group and their leader was unapologetic.
“Yes, my workers beat them. After the attack on our army men with the help of Kashmiri militants, there is anger among the public,” the group’s president, Ambuj Nigam, said from Lucknow.
“The Kashmiris pelt stones at our soldiers and wave the Pakistani flag. Why should we tolerate that?”
Nigam said the two hawkers had looked “suspicious” so his members asked them for identity cards. His men had called the police but they had taken took too long to arrive, he said.