Five legislators survived a terrorists’ grenade attack on Wednesday afternoon, when they were travelling in a convoy of vehicles under police escort in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir.

The incident took place at 12.30 pm, when terrorists hurled grenade at the vehicle in which the five MLAs — two each from the NCP and Shiv Sena and one from the BJP — were heading from Pahalgam to Srinagar.

The legislators were on a tour to study the Panchayat Raj system prevailing in Jammu & Kashmir. “We suddenly heard a huge sound. The tyres of a one vehicle in our convoy got burst, while windowpanes of another vehicle were smashed... Before long, we realised that terrorists had hurled grenades on vehicles. Fortunately, all five of us are safe,” NCP MLA Vikram Kale said, while giving details of the incident. Apart from Kale, four other MLAs who survived the grenade attack were: Dipak Chavan (NCP), Tukaram Kate, Kishore Patil (both Shiv Sena) and Sudhir Parwe (BJP),

“After the attack, we panicked and sped our vehicle from the scene of incident. When we stopped our vehicle after a distance, we realised one of the tyres of our vehicle was burst. We were in all 20 persons, including security personnel, in our convoy when the incident took place,” Kale said.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, Thursday, 24 May 2018 | TN RAGHUNATHA | Mumbai