SRINAGAR: The last surviving terrorist involved in the 2019 Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel was among the Jaish-e-Mohammad trio gunned down by security forces in a nightlong operation in Anantnag two days ago, IGP (Kashmir) Vijay Kumar said on Saturday. The identity of slain Jaish commander Samir Dar will be forensically confirmed through DNA profiling.
The IGP said security forces knew they were onto something after noticing that the face of one of the three terrorists killed in the cordon-and-search operation at Nowgam Dooru in Anantnag last Thursday matched that of Samir in the police records. He had been initially identified as someone else. Closer scrutiny revealed he was the local Jaish commander who had dodged them for nearly three years since the Pulwama attack.
Samir was part of the Jaish team that recruited and trained a suicide bomber, identified as Adil Ahmed Dar, to ram his explosives-laden vehicle into a bus ferrying CRPF personnel at Lethpora in Pulwama district on February 14, 2019, the police said.
Of the three Jaish terrorists shot dead in Anantnag on Thursday, one was identified as a Pakistani. Another Pakistani was in a group of three other terrorists killed in a simultaneous operation by a joint team of the Army, police and CRPF in adjoining Kulgam.
Lt Gen DP Pandey, general officer commanding of the Army's Chinar Corps, said Pakistan-based Jaish had tasked Samir with training recruits to make and plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to target mainly security forces. "He was also responsible for recruiting young locals for terror activities by radicalising them."
(with agency inputs)
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