Jammu and Kashmir police on Friday said that it arrested three newly recruited militants allegedly involved in an attack on the son of a popular eatery in Sonwar area here on Wednesday evening.
Inspector General Police (IGP) Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, said that three-bike-borne newly recruited militants carried out the attack to instill fear among tourists on a day when foreign envoys were in Srinagar.
“A civilian called SP South city and informed that the attackers were riding a bike after which we accessed the CCTV footage and followed other inputs,” he said addressing a presser, here.
The IGP said they followed certain leads and arrested two youth who were involved in the act. “The bike used in the offence and a pistol were seized. After interrogating the duo, they revealed that a third person was also involved in the crime,” Kumar said and added the third one was also arrested.
The IGP said all three were newly recruited militants and “one of them was given pistol training in the forest area of hill station Pahalgam. All three belong to Pulwama district.”
He said the trio was lured by a Lashkar-e-Taiba or The Resistance Front (TRF) commander Gazi, “who had tasked them to strike at Krishna Dhaba, where tourists rush is always high and the shop even remains open during strikes.”
“The main aim of the attack was to instill fear among the tourists on a day when EU envoys were in Srinagar. We have cracked the case in 24 hours and it is a big success for us,” the IGP said.
The eatery is famous for its fresh and clean vegetarian food served at reasonable rates and remained functional even during the high points of militancy in Kashmir.
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