India’s top investigative agency filed its first charge-sheet on Tuesday (25 August), naming 19 people accused of carrying out last year's deadly 14 February terrorist attack on its troops in Kashmir.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) called the Pulwama attack in Kashmir a “well-planned criminal conspiracy hatched by the Pakistan-based leadership of the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad” in the 13,500-page charge-sheet.
The agency has traced links to Pakistan and Afghanistan, listing out evidence like photographs of “every step” of the attack, the car used, videos of rehearsals by the attackers, a WhatsApp call log to numbers in Pakistan, and Pakistan bank accounts details regarding where the money was deposited.
India's Intelligence Agency named 19 accused in #PulwamaAttack. Six of the terrorists named by the NIA have been eliminated, seven arrested and five are still missing. pic.twitter.com/n8oufqzKsS
— Shweta Sharma (@Ss22Shweta) August 26, 2020
The charge-sheet, filed 18 months after the attack, named Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist Masood Azhar and his brother Rauf Asghar as key conspirators. Out of the 19 accused, six were already eliminated, seven arrested and five still absconding.
Explosives from Pakistan
NIA has listed voice notes of JeM Chief Masood Azhar’s brother, Rouf Asghar, discussing the attack as evidence along with Pakistan government identity card possessed by them.
The officials in the NIA revealed that RDX was clandestinely brought from Pakistan by terrorists. The improvised explosive device (IED) was prepared with the help of local supporters in Kashmir, who are named in the charge-sheet. The local supporters also provided accommodation to the JeM terrorists and helped with logistics.
“The explosives were sneaked in from across the borders on the nights when there would be no moon over a period of four months. This is a strategy that is used by the infiltrators wherein they wait for dark nights,” The Print quoted a source as saying.
The IED was stored in two containers, weighing 160 kg and 40 kg. They were installed on a car on 6 February 2019.
NIA Files Charge-sheet Against 19 Accused in Pulwama Terror Attack Case
— Jahan ka insaaf (@JahankaInsaaf) August 25, 2020
NIA filed 13,800 pages chargesheet against 19 accused persons in NIA Special Court at Jammu in connection with the terrorist attack on the CRPF convoy that was moving from https://t.co/5TICtsA46l pic.twitter.com/zwlkocPjky
“The car was kept in the front-yard of Shakir Bashir’s house. Waiz-Ul-Islam ordered 4 kg of aluminium powder from his Amazon account at the directions of the accused, Mohammad Ismail and gave the same to him,” the official said.
Days before the attack, hundreds of WhatsApp calls were made to handlers in Pakistan and NIA has given pinpointed locations of these numbers in Pakistan. The voices were forensically matched.
Training in Afghanistan
NIA also established the links between the terrorists to Al Qaeda, Taliban, and Haqqani-JeM in Afghanistan, apart from JeM, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to NIA, JeM was sending cadres to terrorist camps in Afghanistan to get the training in explosives.
The key accused, Farooq, was in Afghanistan during 2016-17 according to the NIA. In 2018 he entered India from Jammu and was inducted as Jaish-e-Mohammad Commander of Pulwama.
Another Planned Attack Averted
"They had also planned to carry out another suicide attack, which was averted due to the Balakot strikes and due to the killing of the main conspirator, Mohd Umar Farooq, by the security forces. Furthermore, due to international pressure, Pakistan lay low,” the NIA said.
Indian warplanes retaliated for the suicide bomb and struck an alleged militant camp inside Pakistan. Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane in a subsequent air battle and took the pilot prisoner before returning him on 1 March.
