The injured include Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Ghulam Sarvar Chauhan, head constable Khadim Hussain, assistant sub-inspector Shamsher Singh and sub-inspector Mohammad Maqbool Gorsi. They were airlifted to the Government Medical College at Jammu. The civilian who was injured in the blast has been identified as Mohammad Hanif.

Preliminary investigations revealed that at about 2.10 pm a postman handed over a registered parcel to a constable at the DPL. The parcel was addressed to Chauhan and the name of the sender was given as A R Mirza from Bharote. The constable passed on the the parcel to head constable Khadim Hussain.

Says Chauhan, ``I had just returned from a meeting chaired by the DGP when Khadim told me that a parcel had come for me from some A R Mirza. I became suspicious as I didn't know anyone by that name andbefore I could warn Khadim not to open the parcel he did the same. The very next moment there was a deafening explosion and I lost consciousness.''

Khadim suffered the most injuries in the blast and both his hands were severed. Shamsher, Gorsi and Chauhan received serious splinter injuries.

The blast took place just a couple of hours after Director General of Police Gurbachan Jagat, who was on an official visit to the district, left for Poonch.

Investigations so far indicated that highly explosive 1 kg of RDX was placed in the parcel and as it was addressed to Chauhan, sources claimed, the target was the Deputy Superintendent of Police himself who in the recent times has supervised some successful anti-militancy operations in the district. Also, since the explosion took place at a time when the District General of Police was on an official visit to the area, there are fears that the blast could also have been aimed at the police chief.

Security has been beefed up in the area and the site of theexplosion has been sealed off to avoid any tampering of evidence.