The head of Indian occupied Kashmir's main opposition party, Omar Abdullah, survived an assassination bid on Sunday, for the second time in a month, when a bomb detonated a few steps away from him, killing one and wounding seven, police said. The freedom fighters struck as Abdullah, a leader of pro-India National Conference party and had earlier served as India's junior foreign minister, arrived for the funeral of Safdar Ali Baig, gunned down on Thursday. They also bombed mourners arriving at the graveyard.
They then raked police escorting politicians at the funeral with automatic gunfire, forcing dozens of mourners to run for their lives as bullets flew around the graveyard.
TV footage showed police ducking behind cars, returning fire and carrying away one of the injured in a white sheet.
"It was a narrow miss for Omar Abdullah," a police officer said in Occupied Anantnag, 50km south of here.
Abdullah had just emerged from his car when there was a deafening explosion, sending people fleeing for cover, said Nazir Ahmed who witnessed the blast.
"He was only a few metres (yards) away from the site of explosion," Ahmed told AFP. Security personnel fired into the air.
"The explosion sparked panic - everyone ran for cover," said Ahmed.
Abdullah's bodyguards whisked him from the scene of the attack. "This is a colossal security lapse," said a shaken Abdullah, who has often accused the government of failing to give him enough protection. "The government is playing with my security," he told reporters, demanding a probe into the attack by federal Indian security agencies. "This was a planned trip and despite that a massive blast took place."
Abdullah's father, Farooq Abdullah was nearby when the explosion took place.
There was no comment from the state government.
Police said freedom fighters may have used a new kind of remote-controlled explosive device which escaped electronic jammers installed aboard the leader's car.