Army defuses IED on Srinagar-Baramulla highway

The pressure cooker-based IED was planted near an automobile workshop approximately 2 km from the Lasjan Bridge on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Army defused an improvised explosive device (IED) on Friday on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway in Jammu and Kashmir.

Members of the bomb disposal squad defuse an IED in Lasjan area of Srinagar.(Waseem Andrabi/HT Photo)

The pressure cooker-based IED was planted near an automobile workshop approximately 2 km from the Lasjan Bridge on the outskirts of Srinagar.

An army official said the troops detected a suspicious object during a routine road opening procedure in the morning hours.

“The area on either side of the road was immediately cordoned off and traffic was stopped to avoid threat to civilian lives. The IED was recovered and destroyed in situ by the bomb disposal team,” he said.

The quantity of explosives found in the IED was large enough to cause serious damage on such a busy stretch of the road, which is considered the lifeline of the region.

The traffic on the highway remained suspended for hours even after the explosives were removed.

The entrepreneurship development institute, where a 48-hour gunfight ensued after militants attacked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Sempora last month, is also not far from the area.