Mehbooba Mufti, president of the People's Democratic Party, has described the fidayeen attack on Gulam Nabi Lone, education minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government, as 'an act of desperation' to divert attention from relief work to terrorism.

Speaking to rediff.com from her residence in Srinagar [Images], Mehbooba condemned the dastardly act, in which Lone was killed when he was meeting quake-affected people at his residence.

"According to the information that we have, the two fidayeen, aged between 19 and 20, first tried to enter the house of Communist Party of India-Marxist leader, Yusuf Taragmi, but the Central Reserve Police Force fired back and killed one of the attackers. The other one managed to get into Lone's house next door and killed the minister. This is an act of desperation by those who want to divert attention from the relief work to terrorism and tell the world that they are alive and kicking," she said.

Mehbooba said that the terrorists had been feeling uneasy as the state government and the civilian population was focussing more on the relief work.

Union Urban Development Minister Ghulam [Images] Nabi Azad also said on Tuesday that such unmindful killings prove that terrorists do not have any sympathy for the people of Jammu and Kashmir [Images].

In his condolence message, Azad said it was unfortunate that at a time when the entire nation and the state, in particular was making efforts to help those affected by the recent earthquake, some militants were taking recourse to attacking political leaders and other innocent people with the sole aim to disrupt normalcy and divert attention from providing relief to earthquake victims.

"Who are the terrorists trying to impress by striking and killing innocent people? They cannot digest the fact that the Congress and PDP alliance has worked so well and taken up adequate relief measures and, hence, they are not happy. Within one week, this is the third attack by the terrorists but they have not got the kind of mileage they were hoping to get," a senior Jammu and Kashmir police official said on phone from Srinagar.

Intelligence agencies had confirmed that over 3000 terrorists had been killed in the earthquake that struck on October 8. Several terrorist training camps were struck; some of them caught fire and huge amunition dumps exploded, causing further damage.