Hizbul Mujahideen behind Jammu bus blast, says Jammu and Kashmir Police

Jammu and Kashmir Police on Thursday said that Hizbul Mujahideen was behind the Jammu bus stand blast. The accused - Yasir Bhatt – arrested by the police was tasked to throw this grenade by Farooq Ahmad Bhat, district commander of the proscribed terror outfit, said Inspector General Police (IGP) Jammu Manish K Sinha. 

Sinha said that teams were constituted immediately after the blast and the accused was arrested within a few hours on the basis of CCTV footage and testimony by eyewitnesses. The accused has confessed to the crime, he added

“Teams were constituted to work on leads, CCTV camera footage examined, based on oral testimony of witnesses we were able to identify a suspect. He was detained, his name is Yasir Bhatt, he has confessed to the crime,” the top cop said. 

IGP Jammu, Manish K Sinha on explosion at Jammu bus-stand: Yasir Bhatt was tasked to throw this grenade by District Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in Kulgam, Farooq Ahmed Bhatt alias Omar. https://t.co/wcBsug29Kp

— ANI (@ANI) March 7, 2019

"The accused was caught while trying to flee from the explosion site," a police official said. According to reports, he hails from South Kashmir’s Kulgam

During questioning Bhat said he had procured the grenade from Farooq Bhat in Kulgam and reached Jammu in the morning, he said.

"Whenever there is heightened state of alert, we strengthen checking and frisking but there is always a possibility of someone slipping through and this one seems to be a case like that," the IGP said. The officer said there was no specific input about such an attack in the city.

 "General inputs are always there and the deployments have been made. We are working on the leads all the time whenever we get inputs but there was nothing specific about this," Sinha said.

"Obviously the intention is always to disturb the communal harmony and peace," he said and requested the people to maintain calm.

A grenade was thrown under a parked bus at Jammu's main bus stand. A teenager was killed and around 25 others sustained serious injuries in the blast. All the injured were rushed to Government Medical College hospital for treatment in critical condition. Following the attack, security agencies cordoned off the entire area and a team of forensic experts reached the spot to investigate the blast.

This is the third grenade attack by terrorists in Jammu bus stand since May last year. 

The condition of four more injured persons was "critical" and two of them were operated upon by the doctors to save their lives, they said. The injured included 11 residents of Kashmir, two from Bihar and one each from Chhattisgarh and Haryana, the officials said.

According to eyewitnesses, a loud explosion was heard inside a bus. Initially, people thought it was a tyre burst but when they reached the spot it was found out that a grenade has exploded there. So far, no group has claimed the responsibility of the attack.

"I thought it was a tyre burst. it was a big blast. The locals took the injured to the hospital in an ambulance," news agency ANI quoted one of the eyewitnesses as saying.

The incident took place days after Pulwama attack in which over 40 CRPF personnel were killed after a suicide bomber of the JeM drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy. Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed took the responsibility of the attack. Following this, Indian Air Force carried out a strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camp inside Pakistan.

With PTI Inputs