Shah Abbas
Srinagar
After a time period of five months, police on Friday refuted its own statement and termed the Bijbehara blast a grenade attack in which four tourists were killed on July 28.
Police on Friday, while issuing a statement about the Pulwama encounter claimed “Lashkar-e-Taiba militant, Imtiyaz Ahmed Teli alias Fahadullah Kashmiri resident of Pulwama, and his other local accomplice were behind the Bijbehara attack, which left four women tourists dead”.
In the month of July, this year, a tourist vehicle experienced a blast inside it at Bijbehara town in south Kashmir.”Today (July 28), a cylinder exploded in a vehicle, bearing registration number JK02AP/0676 which was on way from Srinagar to Pahalgam, at Zuripora (Anantnag), falling under the jurisdiction of police station Bijbehara, in which six passengers were injured, of whom two died,” said the then police statement. Two other injured tourists later died in the hospital.
However, after the encounter in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on December29, a police statement claimed that the two militants killed had hurled a grenade inside the tourist vehicle in Bijbehara.
“The slain militants were involved in the grenade attack in Bijbehara in which four women tourists were killed in July this year, “said a police statement.
A police spokesman while clarifying the two statements said to Kashmir Life, “Yes, it is true that we have refuted our own claim today, it was only because forensic investigation later proved the Bijbehara blast as a grenade attack”.
Pertinent to mention that since the incident took place in Bijbehara, six months ago, police never referred to the blast as a militant attack.
