Two persons, including a minor boy, were killed while five others injured when militants hurled a grenade on a parked tourist vehicle at Gulmarg hill resort on Sunday evening.

Thirty-six-year-old Ashok Kumar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, was declared brought dead by doctors at Tangmarg Hospital, while eight-year-old Mohammad Yousuf Chopan of Baba Reshi area of Gulmarg was pronounced dead at the SMHS Hospital, where he was referred for specialised treatment.

Unidentified militants launched the attack, the first such incident this year, at the north Kashmir resort, 65 kms from Srinagar around 5 pm, official sources said.

Gulmarg, the favourite destination of holiday-makers, was jam packed with tourists, mostly locals, when unidentified militants tossed the grenade towards a parked tourist vehicle at the taxi stand, the sources said.

The grenade rebounded after hitting the vehicle and exploded on the roadside with a loud explosion, leaving seven persons including three tourists - Kumar, Jagdish Soni, and Parakh (all residents of Uttar Pradesh) - injured.

Police immediately rushed to the blast site and evacuated the injured to hospital. The condition of two other locals - Irshad Ahmad Sofi of Sopore and Parvaiz Ahmad Deedar, both of Chandoosa village of Baramulla district - was stated to be serious.

It being Sunday, locals outnumbered domestic tourists, and most of the injured in the grenade attack were local residents.

The attack had already sparked off a panic among the tourists, who have started leaving the resort despite police and security personnel beefing up security arrangements and launching an operation to flush out the militants responsible for the offensive.

No one was arrested during the operation, sources said adding that none of the outfits operating in the state has claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack. This was the first militant strike on tourists in the Valley this year.

Earlier in 2006-2007, a series of grenade attacks left over 22 tourists and two locals dead and dozens others injured, causing severe blow to the Valley's tourist industry. While 15 tourists were killed in grenade attacks in 2006, nine others including two locals died last year in similar attacks last year.

Tourists started returning to the Valley in large numbers this season but the recent agitation over the land transfer issue involving Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) during the last week of June briefly kept the tourists away.

Sunday's attack comes barely 24 hours after militants of Hizbul Mujahideen blasted an army vehicle, part of an army convoy at Narbal along the Srinagar-Baramulla national highway, killing eight soldiers and injuring 14 others.

On July 18, militants detonated a grenade at Banihal on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway injuring 34 people, including six security personnels.