Police arrest two more suspects in Bemina attack

Investigators find involvement of 15 people in fidayeen attack

The Jammu and Kashmir Police have arrested two more suspects on the allegations of providing logistic support to militants who carried out a fidayeen (suicide) attack at Bemina on Wednesday in which five CRPF personnel and two militants were killed.

Sources told Deccan Herald that Pradeep Singh, posted in north Kashmir’s Tangmarg area as contractual health inspector, was arrested from his Kanispora residence in Baramulla on Saturday.

Singh, they said, was arrested after Bashir Ahmad Mir alias Haroon Bhai, a surrendered militant at present working for Lashkar-e-Toiba, who was arrested on Thursday told his interrogators that the two militants who carried the attack in Bemina had stayed with Singh at his rented accommodation in Tangmarg for a few days.

Singh was under the radar of security agencies for the last several months for his alleged links with the militants, the sources said, and added that he had also been arrested by the police in an alleged fake currency case some years back.

However, Singh’s wife Harmeet Kour denied the police allegation and claimed that her husband had been implicated falsely in the case.

She said that some days ago her husband had called her to say that some people had forcibly entered his government residence in Tangmarg saying “if they were not allowed to stay in his place they would kill him.”

“My husband was scared, came home the next day and narrated the whole incident to me. But I told him to keep quiet about the incident,” she added.

Kour said her husband surrendered before the police after the latter came to their house searching for Singh.

A senior police officer revealed to Deccan Herald that investigators have found direct or indirect involvement of 15 people in Bemina fidayeen attack out of which four have been arrested so far.

Besides Bashir Mir, Pradeep Singh and Pakistani militant Zubai alias Abu Talah alias Riyaz, he said, the police have arrested another former militant from Palhalan area of Pattan in district Baramulla in the case. “He was arrested from Shaheen Gunj area of Srinagar on Saturday,” he added. However, his identity couldn’t be ascertained.

The officer said the Bemina attack fidayeen had stayed in Baramulla, Palhalan and Tangmarg areas of North Kashmir before landing in Chattabal area of Srinagar for launching the attack.

“The police is in search of other people who provided logistic support to the fidayeen after they crossed the Line of Control in Uri sector of north Kashmir last month. The arrest of the people who helped Bemina fidayeen would help the police to nab other militants who have come to Kashmir specially to launch more fidayeen attacks,” he added.