The body of a woman killed in the blast. (AFP)

Srinagar, July 29: A trip to the Hazratbal shrine ended in tragedy for a group of Gujarati Muslims and their local hosts when a blast on their bus killed six.

“I do not know where my parents are,” sobbed Class V student Asiya Majid Sheikh, soaked in blood. People started wailing in the bus after the blast, she said from her hospital bed. “I also started crying. Police later came and brought me to the hospital.”

Five of the dead were women, including Nusrat, the daughter of the group’s local host. Four were from Gujarat — Moosa Sheikh, Razia, Syeda Akhtar and Ameena Bibi.

The visitors were guests of a family at Nawa Kadal in Srinagar, police said.

After praying at Hazratbal in the afternoon, they were heading towards Shalimar gardens near Dal Lake when the blast occurred. “The explosion took place beneath a seat and we are ascertaining whether it was an improvised explosive device or something else. It was certainly not a grenade explosion as it is an air-conditioned bus with fixed windows,” Srinagar police chief Ahfad ul Mujtaba said.

Another police official, however, did not rule out a grenade blast or an explosion from a faulty air conditioner.

“A girl accompanying us had fainted at Hazratbal and we left towards Shalimar to get medicines for her. A powerful explosion took place when the bus halted outside the garden while someone had rushed to a shop to get the medicines,” said Shams-ud-din, a visitor who escaped unharmed.

Over a dozen were injured. At the hospital, Haseena Akhtar wept silently as doctors treated her.

“Why did they target us? What have we done?” wailed a victim.

Chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has ordered an inquiry.

Relief for workers

Tens of thousands of migrant labourers heaved a sigh of relief after Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani said yesterday that “criminal elements alone’’ should leave the Valley and asked militants to keep out of the issue.

Hizb-ul Mujahideen, which had ordered all outstation workers to leave the state after two were arrested for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl, today said it has not served any such ultimatum.

“We have only asked them to identify criminal elements and send them back. For the misdeeds of a few, all cannot be punished,” Hizb spokesperson Ehsan Elahi said in a statement faxed to a local paper.

“The non-state labourers should continue to earn their livelihood peacefully,” he said.