Srinagar encounter site resembled battle zone

The deadly attack on an army convoy on Monday evening made city outskirts resemble a battle zone with gunfire, grenade blasts and frenetic screams for help by injured soldiers making the scene gory.

“At first I presumed it to be bursting of crackers but in the meantime I could hear the people shouting. As I rushed out of home, everyone was running for shelter,” said Nahida, a housewife living adjacent to the encounter site.

“I at once shut the main gate and rushed to my baby who was playing on the lawns indoors,” she said.

Mohammad Sadiq, a shopkeeper, said finding security men running for cover, he abandoned his shop. “After that it was all fear amid rattling gunfire,” he said. “I saw an army personnel lying in a pool of blood and couldn’t witness the scene as he was crying for help. I ran for safety.”

 “It reminded me of early nineties when such incidents were a routine. God knows what will happen to Kashmir now,” a visibly perturbed Sadiq said.

Army troops along with police and para-military CRPF were seen rushing to nab the militants. Eyewitnesses said after initial heavy firing, gunshots continued for a few minutes.

For many, Facebook was the first medium to report about the incident as panic gripped the area amid gunshots. Shabir Ahmed, a Kashmiri techie working in a south Indian state said he got to know about the incident within minutes on the social networking website.