The Jaish-e-Muhammad had picked up a new recruit for the deadly attack in Pulwama. The suicide bomber has been identified as Adil Ahmad Dar, alias “Waqas Commando”, a resident of Gundibagh village in Pulwama.
In police records, Dar is a ‘C’ category militant, which means very few cases of militancy were filed against him compared with those against an ‘A plus plus’ category militant.
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“I will remember my son as obedient, helpful and sensitive. He worked as a cloth seller and as a mason. We least suspected what he had become,” said his father, Ghulam Hassan Dar, in the two-storey house of another son.
Local people have been trickling into Dar’s house. In a video, he is seen warning of more such attacks, while referring to the hijacking of IC814 and the Pathankot attack.
Dar, who has three brothers, did a course in Islamic studies after his Class 11 examination, his family said. Relatives said the killing of Burhan Wani in 2016 changed the course of his life. “Dar was hit by a bullet in the leg in street protests. In 2016, his cousin also was killed in an encounter. Of late, he would talk about Kashmir and rights violations a lot,” a relative said.
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Dar went missing in March 2018 and resurfaced on social media in April, with a display of weapons.
The police are investigating his links with Fardeen Khanday from Tral who participated in a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in Lethpora on December 30, 2017.