Last week's blast in Kashmir that killed three women from Mumbai and injured seven others was a terror attack and not a CNG blow-up as was earlier believed, DIG (south Kashmir) Vijay Kumar said on Monday.
While the survivors had told the police that a young boy had lobbed something at the vehicle just seconds before the blast, cops maintained it was the car's CNG kit that blew up. On Monday, they were forced to change their stance after hospital reports indicated the presence of splinters in the victims' bodies as per a report in Mumbai Mirror by Divyesh Singh and Anil Raina
"It was a low-intensity blast and the vehicle’s body was intact. A grenade blast tears off the vehicle's sides, so investigations were carried out in the direction thinking that it could be a cylinder blast. Preliminary investigation reports have now confirmed that it was a grenade attack and we have registered a case of militant violence," DIG Kumar said.
On Monday, two survivors of the blast returned to Mumbai with three bodies. Three other women of the group are critically injured and are still being treated at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Studies. Neeta Jethwa, who suffered minor injuries in the blast, said she was surprised to hear on TV that the police believed it to be an accident. "Almost all of us in the vehicle saw the boy lobbing something at us. Our vehicle had just left a toll post and had not yet picked up speed. It all happened in a fraction of a second," she said.
Jethwa said the cops did not take into account the fact that the car did not catch fire after the blast which it should have if it were a CNG explosion and also there are very few CNG cars in the Valley primarily because the network of refuelling stations is poor. Jethwa lost her mother Nirmala Rathore and two cousins in the blast.
Jethwa's husband, Bharat, a tour operator, had organised the trip to Vaishno Devi. On the tour, Jethwa was accompanied by her mother and four cousins – Nisha Jethwa, Geeta Jethwa, Bharati Purohit and Indu Parmar – and two family friends Jaswanti Thakkar and Jaishri Desai.
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