Terror attack at Kabul gurdwara: NIA files FIR
A team to later visit Afghan capital
NEWDELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed a case to probe the March 25 terror attack on a gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, in which 27 Sikhs including an Indian citizen were killed by four gunmen.
It is the first time that an Indian agency has decided to investigate a terror attack on foreign soil in which an Indian citizen fell victim.
The NIA has registered its case under criminal conspiracy and terror charges. An NIA official, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “We will first seek all the documents from Afghanistan authorities through official channels to see what kind of evidence they have collected so far. A team will later visit Kabul”.
NEWDELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed a case to probe the March 25 terror attack on a gurdwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, in which 27 Sikhs including an Indian citizen were killed by four gunmen. It is the first time that an Indian agency has decided to investigate a terror attack on foreign soil in which an Indian citizen fell victim.
The NIA has registered its case under criminal conspiracy and terror charges. An NIA official, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “We will first seek all the documents from Afghanistan authorities through official channels to see what kind of evidence they have collected so far. A team will later visit Kabul”.
Tian Singh, a resident of Greater Kailash Part-I in Delhi, was among the 27 Sikhs killed in the attack, which took place when there were 150 worshippers in the gurdwara. The Narendra Modi government last year amended the NIA Act, empowering the agency to investigate terror activities against Indians and Indian interests abroad apart from cyber crimes and human trafficking. The amended law came into force on August 2, 2019.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has such powers and an FBI team had even travelled to India to investigate the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 in which six American citizens were among the more than 160 killed.
The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) had claimed responsibility for the Kabul terror attack, saying it was staged to avenge alleged atrocities on Muslims in Kashmir.
Initial investigations have revealed that one of the attackers in the Kabul attack was Muhsin alias Abu Khalid al-Hindi, a resident of Kerala’s Kasargod district, who had left India around five-six years ago. Others who left Kerala to join Islamic State are also under the scanner.
Indian officials suspect that a few others from Kasargod who left India in 2016 to join the Islamic State, including a man known simply as Sajid, is also behind the Kabul attack. A large number of ISKP members are said to be from India including those who travelled to Afghanistan from Kerala’s Palakkad and Kasargod.
Indian agencies are not ruling out the role of Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in helping Mushin, who was killed by Afghan security forces, and others involved in the attack as there are reports that he first joined the Pakistanbased terror group Lashkar-eTaiba and later switched to the Islamic State.