NIA files charges, names JeM chief Masood & Pak
‘13,800-page chargesheet has digital proof of Pak hand’
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday filed its chargesheet in the Pulwama terror attack that killed more than 40 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and injured eight others in February last year. The chargesheet, filed in a special court in Jammu, names Jaish-eMuhamm-ad (JeM) chief Moulana Masood Azhar, his two brothers Rouf Asgar and Ammar Alvi, suicide bomber Adil Ahmed Dar and 15 others as the accused.
On February 14, 2019, Dar alias ‘Waqas Commando’, an alleged JeM cadre, rammed an explosives-laden Maruti (Suzuki) Eeco into a bus which was part of a convoy of the CRPF at Lethapora in Pulwama district, killing and maiming security personnel on board.
The NIA has claimed that the conspiracy to launch the deadly attack was hatched by the JeM leadership in Pakistan but carried out by local militant Dar to project it
as an act of home-grown militancy in the Valley.
The terror attack was initially probed by the J&K police in close partnership with the CRPF, the Army and other security forces and intelligence agencies. However, the case was soon handed over to the NIA for investigation by the Union home ministry.
The NIA claimed that it has in its 13,800-page chargesheet, filed along with photographs and digital proof, in a special NIA court in Jammu provided “irrefutable evidence”, including the chats and
call details of the 19 accused and also to highlight the role of Pakistan in the deadly attack.
The chargesheet has been filed after the case was registered against the accused under various sections of J&K’s (now defunct) Ranbir Penal Code, Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Foreigners Act and J&K Public Property (Prevention of Damages) Act.
The accused are JeM chief Masood Azhar, his two brothers Rouf Asgar
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■ Continued from Page 1 and Ammar Alvi — all absconding, local Kashmiris Shakir Bashir, Insha Jan, Peer Tariq Ahmed Shah, Waiz-ulIslam, Muhammad Abbas Rather, Bilal Ahmed Kuchay and Muhammad Iqbal Rather (all of them already arrested) and absconders — Pakistani national Muhammad Ismail and locals Sameer Ahmad Dar and Ashaq Ahmed Nengroo. Besides suicide bomber Adil Dar, the other accused in the case who have been killed since are Pakistani nationals Muhammad Umar Farooq, Muhammad Kamran Ali and Qari Yasir and locals Sajjad Ahmed Bhat and Mudassir Ahmad Khan.
The NIA said that investigation revealed that the Pulwama attack was a result of “a well-planned criminal conspiracy hatched by Pakistanbased leadership of JeM which has been sending their cadres to the militant training camps of Al Qaida-TalibanJeM and Haqqani-JeM in Afghanistan for receiving training in explosives and other militant tactics”.