KRIPALGARH (PATTAN), SEP 1: Noted Shia leader Molvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari today had a miraculous escape today evening even as militants detonated a powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blowing up the bullet proof ambassador car he was travelling in. His personal security officer and the driver of the car were killed on the spot.This is the second major bid on Ansari's life in the last three months. In fact 14 villagers were killed and dozens others injured when militants detonated an improvised explosive device planted at a similar religious congregation on June 2.Today's attack is considered a major security lapse because the first attack had occurred in the same area, few hundred metres away in Gund Khawaja Qasim village.Ansari was returning from a `Hussaini Majlis' (a Shia religious congregation) from a nearby village Mathipora in a cavalcade of five vehicles when the IED planted on the kucha road was detonated. The car was blown up. The driver Nazir Ahmad and the PSO, Head constable Mushtaq Ahamd killed while Ansari escaped without even a scratch.``We were five locals sitting near the chinar (a few dozen metres awayfrom the blast site). Molvi Sahibs cavalcade passed us. Within secondsthere was a massive blast and we saw a car blown up,'' said Fayaz AhmadBhat (35), a villager who had left the congregation half an hour before itsconclusion. Adds Bashir Ahmad, 25, who helped Ansari get out of the car: ``Molvi sahib is alive. I got him out of the car. He was not talking but he was not injured.'' Bashir was later seen shouting at hundreds of protestors near the site of the blast, who were apprehending that the Shia leader was no more.Soon after the blast, thousands of wailing villagers from various Shia villages in the area came out on the Srinagar-Baramullah national highway and stopped all vehicular traffic. Groups of women were wailing and beating their chests while men were pelting stones on the few vehicles caught in the mob. The protestors were shouting slogans against police, blaming them for the blast. ``There was a similar attack on him a few months ago. Why did they not take care this time,'' said Ghulam Mohammad Malik, who had attended the congregation. ``The police fled the spot after the blast and later the DSP opened fire on the protestors,'' he said.A senior police officer said they had advised Ansari not to take risk andavoid venturing into the area. ``It is not safe for VIP's to visit such militant infested areas especially when the roads are not macadamised,'' he said.The protestors were also raising slogans against Pakistan as well as the Government of India. ``It is a conspiracy. A deep rooted conspiracy,'' saidGhulam Rasool Khanday. ``We appeal to all militant outfits not to attackour religious congregations,'' he said and added that the tradition of organising congregations were over hundred years' old and had nothing to do with politics.
