Posted on 11/01/2005 11:15:52 PM PST by ncountylee
SRINAGAR, Nov 2 (Reuters) - A powerful car bomb exploded on a busy highway in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring seven policemen hours before a new chief minister was due to be sworn in, police said.
The explosion occurred in the Himalayan region's main city, Srinagar, where violence continues despite a tentative peace between India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over the state. Police said no further details were available.
"It was a loud explosion; the blast shook the whole house. Some window panes were destroyed," said Amina Begum, who lives nearby.
India has been on high alert since the weekend, when three coordinated blasts killed 59 people and injured about 200 in the worst militant attack on the nation's capital.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that the bombings were probably linked to foreign elements and demanded that Pakistan act against terrorism directed against India.
A Pakistan-based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, called newspaper offices in Srinagar and claimed responsibility for Wednesday's car bomb attack.
The attack near a security patrol came before a member of India's ruling Congress party, Ghulam Nabi Azad, was due to take the oath as the state's new chief minister for the next three years under a power-sharing agreement with a regional party.
Security was tight in Srinagar for Azad's swearing-in. Azad, 56, who was federal urban development and parliamentary affairs minister, has spent nearly his entire political career outside his home state, building his career in party backrooms.
He lacks a popular base in the troubled Himalayan state and has never won an election there.
Even if trying to help them, the IslamoPukes are happy to kill you.
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