india

Updated: Feb 06, 2018 17:56 IST

Two policemen were killed on Tuesday after militants attacked a government-run hospital in Srinagar that allowed a hardened Pakistani terrorist to escape, police said.

The shots were fired in the casualty area of the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital where Naveed Jat and five other prisoners were brought for a checkup, police said.

“It was a planned militant attack as armed gunmen shot at policemen accompanying a Pakistani militant identified as Naveed Jat,” Srinagar deputy inspector general Ghulam Hassan Bhat said.

A red alert has been issued in the city, he told reporters.

A resident of Multan in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Jat, also known as Abu Hanzulla, was a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist allegedly involved in killing of many policemen and a teacher, sources said.

Paramilatary soldiers stand guard outside Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital in Srinagar. ( Waseem Andrabi/HT Photo )

He was arrested from South Kashmir, the hotbed of militancy, in 2014 and was lodged in Srinagar’s Rainawari jail.

The two policemen who died are head constable Mushtaq Ahmad and constable Babar. Some other people also received bullet wounds, sources said.

The other five prisoners remain in police custody.

The area has been cordoned off and search launched for Jat, police said.

According to eyewitness accounts, the terrorists opened fire as soon as Jat, along with five other prisoners and the police team, got off the vehicle outside the Out Patient Department of the 70-year-old hospital. They were lying in wait in the parking lot of the hospital.

Two Lashkar terrorists rained bullets at the police party and fled in a car towards downtown Srinagar.

Earlier, Srinagar SSP Imtiaz Ismail Parray had said one of the prisoners “snatched weapons from police and fired at the protection party”.

(With inputs from PTI)