Mohammad Ismail (25), Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar’s relative from Pakistan, and Sameer Ahmad Dar (22), a Masters drop-out from south Kashmir’s Pulwama, are among the six terrorists involved in the 2019 Pulwama terror attack who are on the run, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in a charge-sheet filed in a Jammu court this week. Another absconding accused Ashaq Ahmed Nengroo (23), a truck driver from south Kashmir’s Pulwama, who helped Pakistani terrorists infiltrate into India, has moved to Pakistan, an NIA official said.
The other three absconding accused are Masood Azhar, his brother Rouf Asgar, and Ammar Alvi, all Pakistani nationals.
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According to the NIA, Sameer Dar who was pursuing a Masters in Zoology, joined the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad in 2018 and was a neighbour of suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar.
Adil Dar rammed a car laden with 200 kilogrammes of explosives into a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) bus on the Jammu-Srinagar highway on February 14, 2019 when 40 personnel were killed.
Minutes after the terror strike, Jaish had released a video of Adil Dar’s, claiming responsibility for the suicide bomb attack to several local media channels in Kashmir valley. In the video, Adil Dar, sitting against the backdrop of a black and white flag is seen saying: “by the time the video is released, he would be in heaven.”
The NIA has found that Sameer Dar tutored Adil Dar on how to pose in the video. “The voice in the video is not of Adil Dar but that of Sameer Dar. Adil Dar lip-synced,” said an NIA official.
The NIA said that Ismail infiltrated from the Jammu border in May 2018 and he brought around 12 kilogrammes of RDX with him that was later used to prepare the bombs used in the Pulwama attack.
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One of the main accused — Umar Farooq, Azhar’s nephew who was killed in an encounter on March 29, 2019 had trained at an Al Qaeda-Jaish camp in 2016. “He spoke Pashto, Urdu, Dardic and Multani dialects and played a key role in motivating Adil Dar. In the Afghanistan camp, he learnt how to assemble bombs and explode buildings,” an NIA official said.
The findings are part of a 13,500 page charge-sheet filed by the NIA in a Jammu court on Tuesday against 19 accused.
Before infiltrating India, Farooq and three other Pakistanis did firing practice at a Pakistani village across the Jammu border. NIA says this exercise could not have been held without the knowledge of the Pakistan Rangers. The official said that the investigations have revealed several tunnels along the International Border through which the Pakistani terrorists infiltrated into India.
The NIA was able to crack the case earlier this year after Farooq’s phone, found at an encounter site in March 2019, was analysed by Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
