SRINAGAR, July 19: A bomb exploded near an army convoy in Indian occupied Kashmir on Saturday, killing at least 10 Indian soldiers and wounding 14 others, a police official said.

The bomb was apparently buried along a highway north of Srinagar and exploded as the army convoy passed nearby, senior police official Botlaguduru Srinivas said.

At least seven soldiers were in “very critical condition,” Srinivas said. The Indian military confirmed that 10 soldiers were killed and 14 wounded in a statement released on Saturday.

“The terrorists had planted an IED (improvised explosive device) under the soil on a road that was being repaired,” Indian army spokeswomen Neha Goel said, adding it went off when a bus, part of a big military convoy, ran over it in Narabal on the outskirts of Srinagar.

The blast created a huge crater in the road, which was stained with blood and strewn with the wounded soldiers’ equipment.

It was one of the worst attacks since 2005, when Kashmiri freedom fighters frequently used roadside bombs to attack Indian troops.

Hizbul Mujahideen, Indian occupied Kashmir’s largest group fighting occupation, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the Current News Service — a local news agency — by a man who gave his name as Ahsan-ul-Haque and identified himself as a spokesman for the Kashmiri freedom fighters.

The surge in violence also comes days after Indian occupied Kashmir was placed under the federal rule following the collapse of the state government, which had sparked massive protests by agreeing to provide land to a Hindu pilgrim trust.

The attack was the deadliest since May 2004, when 28 Indian troops and their relatives were killed in a similar blast carried out by Hizbul Mujahideen.

On Friday, a grenade attack near Srinagar wounded 35

people.—Agencies