Srinagar, Dec 12: A girl died while two of her siblings were injured in a littered explosive blast in Lolab area of frontier district of Kupwara on Wednesday evening.
 Police sources said Nuzhat Akhter daughter of Ghulam Ahmad Shah of Warnow Lolab Kupwara died on spot while her two sisters Shaista (21) Kulsooma (10) were injured after a littered explosive blast in a Lolab forest at around 5 pm today.
 The siblings had gone to Warnow forests to extract timber. “They found some explosive substance and had fiddled with it,” a police official, who visited the spot, told Greater Kashmir, adding that the substance exploded, killing Nuzhat on the spot. He said the injured have been hospitalized.
 Muhammad Amin, a local, said the blast was powerful. “We thought some encounter started but a woman accompanying the girls informed us that it was a blast,” he said.
 In the past more than two years, littered explosives, shells and live ammunition has led to death of more than 28 persons and caused grievous injuries to 26 people across Jammu and Kashmir.
 Investigation into such deaths have found that majority of those killed and injured were children. The children, according to police, are caught unaware as they take the abandoned explosives and ammunition as playing items. It also came to fore that many of the children were handicapped for life.
 To avoid such deaths, the Minister of State for Home had last year asked the police, army, and other paramilitary forces to draft a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for avoiding the loss of human lives after IEDs remain undetected due to non-clearance of debris at encounter sites.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 IST