Four persons, including two CRPF men, injured in grenade attack at Shopian

SRINAGAR: Two CRPF personnel and six civilians were injured in grenade attack on a picket manned by the paramilitary force at Shopian in South Kashmir on Tuesday, even as security forces continued their efforts for the second day to flush out terrorists holed up at the Entrepreneur Development Institute building in Pampore.

Terrorists hurled a grenade at the CRPF picket in the Shopian market at around 11:45 am and it exploded at a distance from the post. “Around eight CRPF personnel were deployed there for law and order,” a CRPF spokesperson told ET in Srinagar.

South Kashmir continues to be the centre point of the ongoing political unrest in the valley since the killing of Hizb ul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8. Around 25 rifles were snatched from police across South Kashmir in the past one month.

At the Entrepreneur Development Institute hostel, 12 kms from Srinagar, army, special operations group and CRPF continued their operations against terrorists who barged into the five-storey building on Sunday morning.

“The operation is on but we are going slow to avoid any major damage to the building,” a CRPF official told ET. An army personnel and a policeman were injured as of Tuesday evening in Pampore. According to the army, militants have fired intermittently. “The operation is going on and we will come out with detailed information after the encounter is over,” Srinagar-based defence spokesperson Rajesh Kalia told ET.

The sprawling campus of EDI was attacked earlier on February 21 this year, when three militants attacked a CRPF convoy nearby and stormed into the main building of EDI and engaged the security forces for three days. Two army captains, one lance naik, two CRPF personnel and a civilian were killed at the time. All the three terrorists were also killed.