Three policemen and a woman were killed and 14 others were injured on Saturday night when a police vehicle carrying detenus back from a court was blown up by an improvised explosive device set off by militants outside Srinagar central jail in the first major attack in the city in three years.
The vehicle of Pulwama district police was way to Pulwama when the IED—fitted car parked at a distance of nearly 30 metres from the jail went up in flames at around 6pm and hit a police vehicle killing Assistant Sub Inspector Sagar Singh and Head Constable Abdul Hamid inside the vehicle on the spot, the police said.
Another policeman succumbed in the hospital and his identity is yet to be established.
A woman identified as Kathija of Khawaja Yar Bal area of the city, who was walking past the site of the blast, was also killed on the spot near the police vehicle.
Fifteen persons, mostly policemen, were injured in the explosion and the condition of five of them was stated to be critical.
A spokesman of pro-Pakistan Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen owned responsibility for the attack saying its activists carried out the IED attack.
The explosion was so powerful that the sound of the blast was heard in entire Srinagar at a time when people were rushing back home for ‘Iftar’ breaking the Ramzan fast.
