Srinagar: Nearly 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed and many others injured when terrorists targeted a convoy with a car bomb at Awantipora in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Thursday. Initial reports suggested that the vehicle used by the terrorists was a Mahindra Scorpio bearing more than 350 kg of explosives.
The injured have been moved to the army base hospital in Srinagar. Terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Home Ministry sources said that terrorists triggered the car bomb while the convoy of 78 CRPF vehicles was driving through the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Goripora area. The stretch on which the incident occurred was largely believed to be sanitised, and authorities have termed it as a “serious breach” of security.
Photographs showed charred remains of at least one vehicle littered across the highway, alongside blue military buses as black smoke billowed into the sky. Official sources said that the attack was carried out by one Adil Ahmad Dar alias “Waqas Commando”. A resident of Kakapora, he had joined the terror outfit last year.
The affected bus reportedly belonged to the 76th Batallion of the CRPF, and it was carrying as many as 39 personnel. Bullet marks on the bus indicated that more terrorists may have fired at the convoy from hiding after the explosion.
Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh lashed out at the terrorists who had carried out the attack. “As a soldier and a citizen of India, my blood boils at the spineless and cowardly attacks… bravehearts from @crpfindia laid down their lives in #Pulwama. I salute their selfless sacrifice & promise that every drop of our soldier’s blood will be avenged,” he tweeted. Union Minister Arun Jaitley expressed a similar sentiment on the social networking site.
The Home Ministry termed it as a “possible suicide attack”, but there was no confirmation on the manner in which the Kashmir terrorist attack was executed.
A highly placed official told news agency ANI that the convoy was carrying at least 2,500 personnel. “Senior officers are at the spot, and an investigation is underway. The injured are being taken care of,” he was quoted as saying.
According to ANI, so many personnel were being transported at one go because the Srinagar-Jammu highway had been shut for the last two days due to bad weather. The convoy had left Jammu around 3:30 pm.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi said he was deeply disturbed by the “cowardly attack” on the CRPF convoy. “My condolences to the families of our martyrs. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured,” he tweeted about the Pulwama attack.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condemnation of the incident soon afterwards. “The attack on CRPF personnel in Pulwama is despicable. I strongly condemn this dastardly attack. The sacrifices of our brave security personnel shall not go in vain. The entire nation stands shoulder to shoulder with the families of the brave martyrs. May the injured recover quickly,” he said.
The scale of this terror strike has exceeded even that of the Uri attack on September 2016, when four heavily armed terrorists targeted an army brigade headquarters – causing 19 deaths. The Indian army had responded with a cross-border surgical strike in which several enemy installations were reportedly destroyed.
This is the worst terror attack to take place in Kashmir since the start of the century. On October 1, 2001, three terrorists had rammed a Tata Sumo loaded with explosives into the main gate of the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar – killing 38 people.
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