SRINAGAR: 

Death of innocence: One of Afroze's sons being carried by volunteers after he died on the way to the hospital in Srinagar yesterday. The Bihari labourer's family was killed when miliants hurled grenades at the bus stand in Batamaloo, near Srinagar. pic/AFP

Tragedy befell a labourer from Bihar as he lost his entire family wife and four children in a grenade attack at Batamaloo bus stand minutes before they were to leave on a Jammu-bound bus.

Mohammad Afroze, a resident of Bihar, was heading to his native village via Jammu when unidentified militants hurled a grenade at the bus stand at 12.00 noon.

Afroze was working as a labourer at a construction site in Budgam district.

Afroze had gone to buy some snacks from a nearby shop when he heard the explosion. "I turned around and saw my children blown apart by the blast," he told police as he tried to come to terms with his tragic loss.

The other dead were identified as his daughter Khushboo and three sons Adil, Quyoom and Ayoub.

"As soon as he saw the bodies of his three children, who had died on the spot in the blast, at the nearby Police hospital, he passed out," a senior police official in the police control room said.

More bad news followed minutes later when Afroze was told that his remaining family members his wife and another son had also died while being shifted to a hospital.

The Bihari labourer now is now at his wits end about what to do. "My world has ended ... you tell me what to do now, where to go," he asked the policemen who were trying to console him.