Srinagar: Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested two youth involved in throwing grenade at Amira Kadal area of Srinagar on Sunday, which left two persons including an elderly man and a girl dead.
Addressing a press conference, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Srinagar, Rakesh Bhalwal said that on May 06, information was received about a grenade attack that took place near Amira Kadal bridge at about 4:20 PM.
“On receipt of this information, a case under FIR number 18/2022 under section 307 of IPC , sections 7/27 of Indian arms act, sections 16, 23 of Unlawful activities Prevention Act was registered at Shaheed Gunj Police Station. It came to fore that the hand grenade was thrown towards a security forces vehicle and this blast caused injuries to a total of 38 persons including 36 civilians and 2 police personnel namely Reyaz Ahmed and Jan Muhamamd. Later, two of the injured among the civilians succumbed.”
The SIT employed modern means of investigation and based on the technical evidence like frame by frame analysis of the CCTV footages of scene of crime, footages of CCTVs of the whole City, tower dump analysis, IP dump analysis, some eye witnesses accounts and crime scene recreation, SSP said.
Based on these, the SIT was able to identify two accused who used a two-wheeler without number–plate to commit this militant act and fled on the same vehicle after committing the act.
“During the intense analysis of the CCTV trail in Srinagar city, the route adopted by both accused was located back to a neighbourhood in Khanyar area. The first accused namely Muhammad Bariq was arrested from Khanyar, Srinagar. His initial examination led to arrest to second accused namely Fazil Nabi. Both are residents of Koolipora, Khanyar Srinagar.”
The two-wheeler used in this grenade attack was also seized by SIT. It further came to the fore that these two accused had committed the militant act on the directions of active militants in Kashmir.
Police said that the plan was to attack the parked security vehicle but due to grenade lobbing from a moving two-wheeler, the target was missed and the grenade exploded in an adjacent crowded area where many roadside vendors and buyers were busy in routine work.
Further, it was also found that this particular area was chosen due to being abuzz with people and traffic.
There have been two other recent grenade attacks in this area on 10th Aug 2021 and on 25th January 2022.
Further investigation is underway and is in full swing in this case, police said, adding that this act of grenade throwing had created panic and anguish among the masses in the whole of Srinagar city.
Meanwhile, Srinagar Police urged all commercial establishments, shops to install CCTV cameras inside and outside of their shops, commercial establishments as per the advisory issued by DC Srinagar. “This will act as a strong deterrence to all the anti-social elements.”
SP South Lakshay Sharma, who headed the SIT on the directions of SSP Srinagar readout police statement for the reporters during the press conference.
