Engineer injured in Srinagar blast dies

SRINAGAR - An assistant executive engineer died in hospital Tuesday, a day after he was critically injured in a grenade explosion in the Jammu and Kashmir summer capital.

“Showkat Ali Khan, an assistant executive engineer of the state roads and buildings department, who had been injured in yesterday’s grenade explosion in Batmaloo area of the city, succumbed to injuries in the hospital Tuesday morning,” a senior police officer said here.

Khan, two cops and a civilian were injured Monday evening in Batmaloo when separatist guerrillas hurled a grenade at a police party outside the fire services headquarters.

Earlier in the day, guerrillas had killed a contractor in Kreeri town of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

On Sunday, Muhammad Ayoub Wani, a truck driver was killed by suspected guerrillas in south Kashmir’s Kakapora town of Pulwama district when he was going home after evening prayers at a local mosque. Two brothers of Wani are serving the state police department as constables.

While police and intelligence agencies are still establishing the actual motive behind Wani’s murder, the fresh spurt of violence in the valley is being interpreted as attempts to revive violence here as the cold winter season is nearing its end.

A senior intelligence officer here said without agreeing to be named, “The militants are likely to increase their activities as the weather improves in the valley.

“The objective is to stoke trouble after relative peace during the last four months. Inputs also suggest the separatists could make attempts to vitiate the law and order situation in the coming months.”