Death toll in Awantipora IED blast mounts to 30

SRINAGAR — The death toll in the IED attack in Awantipora area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama has mounted to thirty, a Times of India report stated. The casualties are likely to go up.

The incident occured on Thursday when a Jaish-e-Mohammed militant trammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the CRPF bus.

More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Awantipora.

Police said the militant driving a suicide vehicle was Adil Ahmad from Kakapora in Pulwama who joined the JeM in 2018.

Condemning the militant attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the sacrifice of the security personnel will not go in vain.

Over 20 people were injured in the terror attack, which reduced the bus to a mangled heap of iron. Several other buses were damaged in the attack. Body parts could be seen strewn around the area.

“It was a large convoy and about 2,500 personnel were travelling in multiple vehicles. Some shots were also fired at the convoy,” CRPF DG RR Bhatnagar told PTI.

The convoy started from Jammu around 3.30 AM and was supposed to reach Srinagar before sunset, officials said.

The number of personnel travelling back to the Valley was high as there was no movement on the highway for the last two to three days because of bad weather and other administrative reasons, they said.

Usually, about 1,000 personnel are part of a convoy but this time it was a total of 2,547 personnel. A road opening party was deployed and the convoy had armoured counter-terror vehicles, officials said.

Forensic and bomb analysis teams are on the spot. The bus that was the focus of the attack belongs to the 76th battalion of the force and had 39 personnel on board, officials said.

CRPF Inspector General (Operations) in the Kashmir Valley, Zulfiqar Hasan described it as a “vehicle-bound attack” and said Jammu and Kashmir Police has taken up the investigation.