It was on this day three years ago that 40 personnel of the CRPF were killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama. A 22-year-old suicide bomber, affiliated with Pakistan’s Jaish-e-Mohammed, rammed an IED-laden vehicle into their bus.
File image of Pulwama terror attack. PTI
It was on this day three years ago that 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama. A 22-year-old suicide bomber, affiliated with Pakistan’s Jaish-e-Mohammed, rammed an IED-laden vehicle into their bus.
The attack met with global outrage against Pakistan-backed terror groups as India covertly prepared for a retaliatory attack 12 days later.
Indian Air Force jets bombed a JeM camp in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The government said that twelve Mirage 2000 jets of the Indian Air Force dropped bombs into Balakot, killing 300 to 350 terrorists in the strike.
On Monday, tributes poured in from several political leaders to the martyred CRPF personnel, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Here’s a look back how the investigation into one of the biggest terror attacks on Indian forces unfolded:
Soon after the incident, JeM claimed responsibility. The terror group also released a video of the 22-year-old assailant, Adil Ahmad Dar, who lived just 10 km from the explosion spot.
Dar’s family had last seen him a year earlier in March 2018, when he left home never to return.
On 14 February 2019, Dar rammed an SUV filled with 350 kg of explosive into one of the buses in the 78-bus convoy carrying over 2,500 CRPF personnel from Jammu to Srinagar.
According to a report by News18, a month after the attack in March 2019, Umar Farooq Alvi, who was one of the key conspirators, was killed by security forces along with another terrorist named Kamran.
Nephew of JeM chief Masood Azhar, Alvi reportedly dug his own grave by sending a text message to the Superintendent of Police, Pulwama district, threatening to kill him.
Alvi switched off the number after sending the message that read “Hi Janu” followed by an emoji of a pistol. He then sent another message saying, “I will come to your house and kill you” to the SP.
For the next few months the number remained inactive, but was put on surveillance by intelligence agencies. And when he reinserted the SIM in his phone, his location became known to the cyber cell.
As per the News18 report, Alvi’s handler in Pakistan, Rauf Asghar, the brother of Masood Azhar, too was concerned with his smartphone addiction. Alvi was directed by Azhar to destroy the phone after Pulwama attack, which he did not do. Azhar was reportedly in communication with one Insha Jan.
Soon after the attack, a 12-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was deployed to probe it working with the Jammu and Kashmir police.
The NIA investigation established and confirmed Dar as the perpetrator of the attack, however, they were not able to trace the source of explosives.
In March 2020, the NIA arrested Tariq Ahmed Shah and his daughter Insha Jan after investigation led to their house at Hakripora in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, where a video was filmed by Dar. The video was released from Pakistan after the attack.
In August 2020, the NIA filed a 13,500-page chargesheet in a special court against 19 people including Masood Azhar for planning and carrying out the deadly suicide attack.
In July 2021, Mohammad Ismail Alvi, a top JeM commander who belonged to the family of Masood Azhar, was killed in a gunfight.
The police said the JeM commander was the mastermind behind the Pulwama attack.
With inputs from agencies
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