Srinagar, Mar 08: Two persons were arrested for Sunday’s grenade attack at a busy market here in which two persons were killed while “38 persons including two policemen” were injured, police said.
The police had filed a case (FIR 18/2022) under section 307 of IPC, 7/27 of Indian Arms Act, sections 16 and 23 of Unlawful activities prevention Act at police Shaheed Gunj Police station in connection with grenade blast at Amira kadal bridge at about 4:20 P.M. on March 6.
“It was found out this blast caused injuries to a total of 38 persons including 36 civilians and 2 police personnel namely Reyaz Ahmed (SgCT) and Jan Mohammad (SPO),” police said in a statement issued here.
Later, two of the injured among the civilians succumbed to their injuries namely Mohd Aslam Makhdoomi(79) S/o Md Amin R/o Mukdim sahab, Nowhatta and Rafia Nazir (18) D/o Nazir Ah Tinda R/o Hazratbal, they said.
In light of this, Section 302 of IPC and sections 3,4 of explosive substances act were added to this case.
Due to Heinous nature of the case and due to the panic it created among the general public, SSP Srinagar Rakesh Balwal, IPS formed a SIT headed by Lakshay Sharma, IPS SP South and consisting of shabir Ahmed SDPO Kothibagh, Fayaz Hussain SDPO Shaheed gunj, Faizan Ali DySP/PC, Anzar Shah DySP(Probationer), Gowhar Hussain SHO Shaheed Gunj and Taseer Ahmed Inspector/PC as members.
The SIT employed modern means of investigation and based on the technical evidences like minute frame by frame analysis of the CCTV footages of scene of crime, footages of CCTVs in the whole of Srinagar city, Cell Tower dump analysis, IP dump analysis, recreation of crime scene and by examination of some eye witnesses, they said.
Based on these, SIT was able to identify two accused who came on a two wheeler without number-plate to commit this crime and fled on the same vehicle after committing the militant act. During the intense analysis of the CCTV trail in srinagar city, the route adopted by both accused was located back to one neighbourhood in Khanyar area, they said.
The First accused namely Mohd Bariq S/o Md Shafi Magrey R/o Koolipora, Khanyar was arrested from Khanyar, srinagar. His initial examination led to arrest to second accused namely Fazil Nabi Sofi S/o Ghulam Nabi Sofi R/o Koolipora, Khanyar. The two wheeler used in this grenade attack was also seized by SIT, they said.
The statement further stated that it further came out that these two accused had committed the militant act on the directions of active militants in kashmir valley.
The plan was to attack the parked security vehicle but due to grenade throwing from a moving two-wheeler, the target was missed and grenade exploded in an adjacent crowded area where many road-side vendors and buyers were busy in routine works.
Further, it was also found that this particular area was chosen due to the omnipresent chaos and turbulent traffic in this stretch of area due to unorganised vendors and stalls on the road. There have been 2 other recent grenade attacks in this area i.e. on 10th Aug 2021 and on 25th January 2022.
Further investigation is underway and is in full swing in this case, they said.
This act of grenade throwing created terror, panic and anguish among the masses in whole of Srinagar city.
By way of this press release, Srinagar Police requests all commercial establishments/shops to install CCTV cameras inside and outside of their shops/commercial establishments as per advisory issued by DC Srinagar, they said.
This will act as strong deterrence to all the anti-social elements, who think of committing such atrocious crimes, concludes the statement.
