Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: The former bodyguard of Kashmir’s top militant leader, Syed Salahuddin has died while another five people have been seriously wounded in a grenade attack by suspected militants in Srinagar, police said.
A police vehicle was ferrying Shakeel Ahmed, an arrested militant and bodyguard of Salahuddin, chief of Kashmiri militant alliance United Jehad Council, to north Kashmir’s Baramulla district from here when it was attacked at at a busy market place in Batmalloo.
He succumbed to his injuries in a hospital.
Sources say Ahmed had been arrested last year and was detained under the Public Safety Act. Recently the state High Court quashed his PSA, but the police did not release him and instead slapped the Act on him again.
The Act provides for detention without trial for at least six months. Ahmed was now being shifted to Baramulla jail.
A police officer told FreePress that four policemen and a passerby have also been wounded in the attack.
No militant group has claimed the incident so far.
Senior police and paramilitary officers rushed to the explosion site immediately after the incident.
The busy Batmaloo market and the bus stand there bore a deserted look following the explosion as people had run for cover after the blast.
