NEW DELHI - A serious tragedy was averted when the Army defused a bomb planted inside a crowded bus-stand in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, even as five suspected militants were killed in separate encounters, agency reports said on on Monday. The Indian army defused a powerful home-made explosive device planted in a scooter inside the main bus stand at Baramulla, 54 kilometers north of the state capital, Srinagar, the IANS news agency said. The bomb would have created mayhem had it exploded as hundreds of commuters were at the bus stand, police said.Meanwhile, security forces shot dead a self-styled district commander of the Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group in an encounter on Sunday night. He was identified as Momin Khan of Pakistan, officials told PTI news agency. He was killed along with his local associate, Mohammad Iqbal Wani, in a two hour long encounter Sunday night at Chhatawach-Shopian village, some 55 kilometres from Srinagar.
In another incident three JeM militants, including the Pakistani nationals Umer Gazali and Hamza Bhai, were killed at the village of Bapura in the Baramulla district Sunday night, officials said. However, residents of the area held protests on Monday morning, alleging that one of the slain men was not a militant but an imam at a local mosque.
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