Kashmir deputy CM survive attempt

Mangat Ram Sharma was travelling in a convoy in the high-security Budshah Chowk area of the summer capital Srinagar when the rebels aimed a rifle-propelled grenade at the cars, police and witnesses said.

"The grenade exploded on the road smashing the window panes of the last escort vehicle of Sharma," a police officer told AFP.

He said three policemen patrolling the road, including an officer in charge of the area, as well as a young girl were injured in the attack.

Sharma, who is deputy chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, escaped unhurt and went straight on to attend the inauguration of Srinagar's first flyover, just 300 meters (yards) from the scene of the explosion.

Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed who inaugurated the flyover was later escorted to the venue under tight security.

A lesser-known rebel group, the Kashmir Freedom Force, later claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to a local news agency.

In further violence in the restive region, three people were killed and a dozen others injured in a bomb blast near Srinagar's famed Mughal-era Nishat garden, a police spokesman said.