6 soldiers killed in Kashmir car bomb attack

The explosion ripped the bus apart and shook the famed Mughal gardens on the shores of lake Dal in the summer capital Srinagar around 4.00 pm (1030 GMT), a police spokesman said.

A civilian photographer who earned his living taking pictures of tourists in the gardens was also injured, as were the bus driver and conductor, both civilians.

The spokesman said explosives were placed in a car and detonated as a military convoy passed by. The bus carrying the soldiers bore the full brunt of the blast.

The soldiers were heading back to their units after having completed their annual holidays, army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP. They had been travelling from Jammu, the southern winter capital.

The region's dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin, which wants Kashmir merged into Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the explosion in a telephone call to local news agency Kashmir News Service.