The National Investigative Agency (NIA) which had been probing two incidents of terror attacks in Kashmir that took place earlier this year has found that both the attacks were perpetrated by the same militant duo who were doing so at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Taiba from Pakistan, a report in The Indian Express said.
The two attacks, one in Dhangri village in Rajouri that killed a total of 7 civilians and the other where an Army vehicle was targeted a couple of months later, killing 5 soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles unit, happened earlier this year and the NIA has been probing the cases after the local police registered cases initially.
An IED that took off in a house a day after the first attack in the Rajouri village was aimed at senior officials who would visit the crime scene, the report said. The blast killed 2 more civilians.
It was reported in September that the NIA had conducted raids on the premises of several suspects in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district in connection with the terror attack in Dhangri village of Rajouri district earlier this year.
The agency had arrested Nisar Ahmad alias Haji Nisar and Mushtaq Hussain on August 31. They are currently lodged in Central Jail, Kot Bhalwal, Jammu.
Ahmed was in contact with an LeT handler named Abu Qatal alias Qatal Sindhi, the report said.
"They provided logistics support to the terrorists for more than two months and sheltered them in a hideout that they had built," an official had said after the duo's arrest in September.
"The duo, as per the investigations, had been operating on the directions of Pakistan-based LeT handlers Saifullah alias Sajid Jutt, Abu Qatal alias Qatal Sindhi and Mohd Qasim," a NIA spokesperson had revealed.
Incidentally, Ahmed who had been earlier arrested a few years ago, was also a police informer.
The militant duo were also the perpetrators of an attack on an Army vehicle near Bhatta Durian on the Bhimber Gali–Surankote road in Poonch.
Published 27 November 2023, 17:30 IST