Unexploded shell goes off, minor hurt

Jammu, January 13

A boy (12) was today critically injured by an unexploded bomb that went off near the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch, the police said.

Mohammad Iqbal (12), a resident of Shahpur, found the bomb in an open field near Qasba village around 11.45 am and started fiddling with it, causing the explosion, a police officer said.

“The boy suffered critical injuries with both his hands blown up. He was rushed to hospital and his condition is stated to be critical,” an official said. The bomb, apparently a mortar fired by Pakistan during cross-border shelling in the recent past, had remained unexploded and undetected, the official said. The boy was playing in the field when he came across the bomb, he said. — PTI