Omar, Farooq survive blast, blame Mufti govt

While the leaders had a narrow escape, a bystander was killed and another critically injured.

The bid comes three days after the gunning down of ex-minister Beigh. Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed himself had escaped a grenade attack last month while filing his nomination papers for the Pahalgam Assembly seat.

Omar Abdullah, however, accused the Mufti government of colluding with militants to eliminate the NC top brass in Anantnag, a bastion of the ruling PDP.

‘‘This attack should open New Delhi’s eyes now. We can fight them (PDP) politically but we have no answer for these attacks. Mufti does not want to spare us physically,’’ said Omar.

‘‘How can one explain then fact that a spot to be visited by two persons, who come under Z security cover, is not sanitised and an IED explodes a few feet away? Either no anti-sabotage checks were carried out before our arrival or the mine was left there to kill us,’’ he said.

Omar also sought a direct probe by the Centre into the incident.

‘‘We have lost all faith in the Mufti government. They just keep telling lies to mislead people. We want a team from Delhi to come and probe these attacks,’’ he said.

Recalling the attack, Omar said: ‘‘I got out of my car and walked towards the grave when the mine exploded. We were just four to five feet away. I don’t know how we survived.’’

J&K DGP Gopal Sharma promised a probe into the attack, while admitting that the overall security situation in the area deteriorated recently. ‘‘Today’s attack is not an isolated one. Last month, when the CM was filing his nomination papers in Pahalgam, militants fired grenades. More than 40 political activists have been murdered by militants in the area,’’ said Sharma.

‘‘We will probe whether the jammer device had any technical problems, which failed to block the remote control signals, or it was a security breach,’’ he said. The NC cavalcade, he said, was dovetailed by a high-tech vehicle fitted with a jamming device, which blocks the signals of a remote control device used by the militants to detonate a mine or an IED from a distance.

Said Omar: ‘‘The Congress is sending congratulatory messages to the J-K government for restoring normalcy and at the same time, it’s being portrayed to world that peace is back in the Valley. But in Mufti’s stronghold, in South Kashmir, you have these brazen attacks on the entire political leadership of our party.’’

Forty two NC and PDP activists have been killed in the area this year, said officials.