SRINAGAR, July 3: Two senior state ministers in held Kashmir narrowly escaped a landmine blast which injured six policemen while 11 people died in militant violence in the revolt-wracked state, police said on Sunday.
Rural development minister Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed and roads and buildings minister Ghulam Ahmed Mir missed the blast by seconds as their convoy passed a village near the northern town of Sopore, police said.
Six policemen, including a senior officer, travelling in an escort vehicle behind the ministers’ cars were injured in the blast.
Sayeed is the head of India’s ruling Congress party in the state, which is in the grip of an insurgency, and Mir is from the same party. Police said two more Congress legislators were travelling in the convoy.
Meanwhile, seven militants were killed late Saturday and Sunday in three separate gunbattles in the southern districts of Anantnag and Pulwama and Baramulla in the north, a police spokesman said.
“All the three clashes erupted when troops laid siege to militant hideouts on a tip-off from intelligence sources,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman said large caches of arms and ammunition were recovered from the scene of the clashes.
In Baramulla a civilian died during an exchange of fire between militants and troops, while in the southern town of Tral a civilian was shot dead by suspected militants, police said.—AFP
