The Pulwama attack took place on 14 February 2019. Pakistan-based terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed took responsibility for the attack. Now the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has received some more important and depth information.
Like who was the main handler of the attack? from where they were? And how did they managed to execute their plan, etc. A magazine has published a detailed story about the incident of September 14. Let’s try to understand the important things mentioned in it.
Recent development, name of leading handler
The NIA filed a 13,800 pages charge sheet related to the Pulwama attack on 25 August. In a special court in Jammu. There are a total of 19 people, who are accused of inciting, helping and carrying out the attack. 22-year-old Pakistani Omar Farooq was leading this team of attackers.
Omar was the chief handler of Jaish. He is expert in bomb manufacturing. Omar was the son of Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Ibrahim Athar. Athar was included in the 1999 Kandahar aircraft hijack. Umar was three years old then. Later, when Maulana Masood Azhar founded Jaish-e-Mohammad in 2000, Athar stayed with Masood there too. When his son Omar was 20 years old, he started training him for terrorist activities.
About 15 days before the attack, Omar had prepared two 200 kg IEDs (powerful explosives) in addition to RDX. He had devised a plan in such a vicious manner that his name did not appear immediately after the attack. It is a different matter that on 29 March 2019, he was killed in an encounter with security forces in Budgam. After death, his relationship with Pulwama attack has come to light.
The first stage of the inquiry
After the death of Omar Farooq, security forces seized his phone. NIA wanted to study all the information recorded in this phone closely. But it took months to get full rights to the phone and extract information from the phone. In December 2019, phone information was extracted and details like, pictures of people making IEDs, chats with Omar’s bosses in Pakistan, etc.
NIA IG Anil Shukla, Jammu Kashmir Superintendent of Police Rakesh Balwal, Deputy Inspector General of Police Sonia Narang and their teams came together closely. And now on the basis of these efforts, such a wide-ranging charge sheet has been filed.
The chain of workflow
April 2018: Umar Farooq entered India across the international border
30 October 2018: Usman, brother of Umar was shot dead in an encounter
November 2018: Mashud Ajhar decided to take revenge and started buying explosives.
December 2018: Umar’s bank account started crediting with a lot of money.thereafter they decided the right spot to execute the plan and started buying explosives.
20-30 Januar 2019: A car was purchased and later started planting bombs in the car.
1-5 February: Information was gathered about the selected crime location.
6 February 2019: They decided to execute plan on 6th of February but due to heavy snowfall, plan was postponed.
14 February 2019: Pulwama attack took place.
29 March 2019: Umar Farooq was shot dead in an encounter. #24x7newsalert
