A 19-year-old succumbed to her injuries a day after the grenade blast took place in Srinagar, taking the toll to two on Monday. An elderly man died in the explosion at Amira Kadal on Sunday while the teenager was admitted to the hospital after she was seriously injured in the blast. Nearly 30 people, mostly unsuspecting shoppers, were injured in the explosion at a busy market square on Sunday afternoon.
Rafiya Nazir had passed the Class 12 last month with 94% and was preparing for the NEET exam to be held later this year. But she got critically injured in the blast when she, her mother, her sister and cousin were walking at the Hari Singh high street market. Inayat Hussain Teli, her teacher, said the three had to drop their relative at Bemina when the tragedy struck them.
The family, who lives in Hazratbal, said Rafiya was at the busy Sunday market, which attracts thousands of buyers, when the explosion ripped the high security area, inflicting splinter injuries to them.
Teli said Rafiya was the only child of the four siblings who had passed Class 12. “Her three siblings, two brothers do menial jobs while her sister studied till Class 10 and was now busy with home chores. Her father is a carpet weaver,” Teli said. The family was keen to see her do well and supported her education though they were constrained at times, he added.
When Rafiya fell in the market, she told her mother she was feeling some pain in her head and enquired if the others were okay, Teli said. Initially, her mother thought her sister had received more grievous injuries because she was bleeding but it was Rafiya who lost the battle for life.
He said she was preparing hard for the exam and wanted to excel in studies and change lives of her family.
Teli said the family will find it difficult to cope with her death. “They were crying near her desk and column of books,” he added.
Abdul Salam Makhdoomi, 64, who died yesterday in the blast, was from downtown Nowhatta area. He died minutes after receiving fatal splinter wounds in his head and body.
The police had said their patrol could have been the target of the attack but the grenade exploded in the middle of a vegetable and fruit market.
The Hari Singh High Street market is less than a kilometre from Civil Secretariat and police control room. The whole area is accorded a high police deployment and is monitored by 24/7 technical surveillance.
Sujit Kumar, deputy inspector general for central Kashmir, said the grenade was hurled at the police patrol around 4.15 pm on Sunday but it was the civilians who took the brunt.
Kumar said grenade attacks was a challenge but the police would track down the perpetrators soon. “We have a good idea about the persons operating and will get them soon,” Kumar said at the site of the explosion where glass shards lay littered before shops on Sunday.
The police further said they have “vital clues” from the CCTV footage and will take steps to prevent such attacks at crowded places in the future. “We will not allow it to become a trend,” he said.
Witnesses said the market was bustling due to the weekend when the explosion took place. The CCTV footage showed people rushing to the spot and lifting the injured. The wounded were bundled in auto rickshaws and vehicles driven by commuters and taken to the hospital.
No militant outfit has claimed the responsibility of the blast.
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