The puppet chief minister of occupied Kashmir, Mufti Mohammad Syeed, escaped unhurt on Friday when freedom fighters fired two grenades at a public meeting he was attending, police said.
But a girl was killed and four people, including a policeman, were wounded in the attack in Beeru, west of occupied Srinagar. The attackers fled when police guarding the meeting returned fire.
Mufti Syeed, who took power in 2002 promising a healing touch to the Kashmiri people, was in Beeru to inaugurate a government building.
A spokesman of Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen called newspaper offices in occupied Srinagar to say they had carried out the attack.
Violence in occupied Kashmir has been unabated, despite peace moves by India and Pakistan.
The two countries agreed to a "basic roadmap" for peace during three days of preparatory talks that ended last week.
"I will continue my peace efforts and I will not be cowed down by such acts...those who have taken to guns must see people want an end to bloodshed and they want development," Syeed later told the meeting.
"There is no place for violence, particularly when India and Pakistan have opened a dialogue," he said.
The attack on Syeed's meeting came as hundreds of demonstrators gathered near occupied Srinagar's main mosque to protest against human rights violations by occupation forces in the region.
Police fired tear gas shells to disperse the 1,000-strong crowd angry over the killing of a 13-year-old boy in police firing on demonstrators on Thursday.
YASIN MALIK DETAINED: Earlier on Friday, police detained Mohammad Yasin Malik, a senior Kashmiri leader and chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), during a demonstration.
The JKLF is a constituent of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, which threatened on Wednesday to pull out of peace talks with New Delhi, saying there had been no respite in human rights violations by occupation forces in the region.
The protests follow a series of incidents in which civilians have been killed.
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