Car bomb kills four, injures 30 in Indian Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Wednesday (AFP) Four people were killed and more than 30 wounded in a big car bomb blast triggered by suspected Islamic militants in the heart of Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar, police said.

"There has been a massive car bomb explosion," said a senior state police official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Four people have died and over 30 people injured," he told AFP.

The morning rush hour blast occurred at a traffic intersection near the headquarters of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank and close to scenic Dal Lake, a favourite tourist haunt in the Himalayan state.

Ambulances rushed to the blast site, which was a scene of chaos. Some of the injured were lying on the road while others were trapped in cars. People were shouting for help and some were crying.

One former minister in the Kashmir state government, Usman Majid, was injured in the attack, police said, adding the bomb may have been aimed at him.

"We also found another abandoned car, which we believe may be wired to explode near where the other blast occurred and we have sealed the spot to defuse it," the state police official added. The latest blast came after two people were killed and 60 injured in a rebel grenade and gun attack at a rally in the town of Tangmarg in Baramulla district, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Srinagar.

Former state tourism minister Ghulam Hassan Mir, a member of the People's Democratic Party that handed over power in the state to the Congress party this month as part of a coalition deal, was slightly hurt in that attack.

Elsewhere a rebel was killed and another arrested Tuesday when police stormed a hotel to end a two-day siege that began with a guerrilla attack on a security post in central Srinagar in which two policemen and two civilians were killed.