Rs 1,000 to lob grenade at mosque

CNN/IBN - New Delhi,India

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police claim to have arrested the man who carried out the grenade attack on a mosque in Pulwama district on Friday afternoon.

The police say the suspect, Ghulam Nabi Shoora, confessed that he was paid Rs 1,000 by the Hizb-ul Mujahedeen to throw the grenade at the mosque. However, the Hizb-ul Mujahedeen has denied the police's claims.

He told Army interrogators that the grenade was meant to target prominent Sufi cleric Abdur Rashid Dawoodi.

Ghulam Nabi was captured by local youth in the town of Tahab late on Friday night and handed over to the Army.

A resident of Litter village in Pulwama district, Nabi worked as a labourer and was instructed to kill particularly Sufi cleric Dawoodi.

Friday's grenade attack, had left five people dead and nearly 60 injured. The attack is believed to be an outcome of a tussle between two Islamic sects.
The terrorists lobbed a grenade towards the mosque at Tahab, 31 km from Srinagar when a large number of people had gathered there to offer Friday prayers, officials said.

Leader of the Barelvi sect Mualana Abdul Rashid Dawoodi was injured in the attack while leading a group of followers through a narrow lane into the mosque where he was scheduled to deliver sermons, they said.

The cleric, whose preachings of Barelvi sect are in contradiction with teachings of Hanafi and Shafaie sects, which are followed by majority of Muslims in the state, has been shifted to SKIMS hospital and was being treated for splinter injuries in his legs, they said.
Of the injured, 12 were admitted in sub-district hospital in Pulwama and ten others discharged after the first aid.
Rest of the injured were brought here for treatment and six of them were stated to be in a critical condition, they said.

Agitated residents of the area indulged in stone pelting on the houses of members of Jamaat-e-Islami party and police had to resort to cane-charge to disperse mob, the officials said.