SRINAGAR, April 25: Violence exploded afresh in occupied Kashmir on Friday when at least 18 people were killed and nearly 50 injured in the bombing of a courthouse, a suicide attack on an Indian force post, an ambush and murderous attacks on politicians.

Three people, two of them women, were killed and 40 injured in a bomb explosion in the early afternoon on the lawns of a courthouse in the town of Patan, 27kms north of Srinagar, a police spokesman said.

He said 18 of the injured, including two children, were shifted to two major hospitals in Srinagar, and that the condition of six was “critical”.

The blast sparked panic in the area as fear-struck residents rushed out of their houses and shops to look for their loved ones.

The bombing is the second this week in which civilians have been victims. On Tuesday, six people were killed in an explosion at a rural cattle-milking yard in a nearby town.

Three Indian paramilitary soldiers, two militants and a civilian were killed on Friday in suicide attack on a BSF camp in another part of the held state, police said.

The attackers, armed with automatic rifles and grenades, launched a raid on the sector headquarters of the Border Security Force (BSF) in Bandipora, 60 kilometres north of Srinagar, a police spokesman said.

In the ensuing firefight, three BSF guards and two militants were killed, while three guards were injured.

A civilian passer-by was also killed in the attack — the second since a new government took charge in Srinagar in November.

A lesser-known militant group, the Al Madina regiment, contacted newspaper groups in Srinagar to claim responsibility for the attack.

An Indian army major and a soldier were killed and three others injured in an ambush by militants in the village of Sumblar, near Bandipora, 60kms north of Srinagar.

Another soldier died in a similar ambush in Mendar area of Poonch district on Friday.

In other incidents, Abdul Gani Malik, 70, a functionary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was shot dead in the village of Waripora, Baramulla district, on Thursday night, police said.

Mr Malik was the ruling party’s block president in the area.

Police blamed militants for the killing and said the assailants later barged into the house of Abdul Ahad Malik, an activist of the pro-government Ikhwan militant oufit in the same village, and shot him dead too.

Another PDP official, Javed Ahmed Bhat, was killed in Pampore, a highway township on the outskirts of Srinagar, on Friday, police said.

Unidentified men also shot dead an alleged police informer, Fayaz Ahmed Dar, in the Laroo village of Pulwama district on Thursday night.

Another civilian died in an exchange of gunfire between militants and Indian soldiers in the neighbouring village of Kelar. —AFP