NIA arrests Kashmiri over Nagrota fidayeen attack

While blaming the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad terror outfit for the 2016 Nagrota army camp fidayeen (suicide) attack, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday said it has arrested a resident of Kupwara in north Kashmir, for reportedly facilitating the attack.

Quoting Inspector General (NIA) Alok Mittal, local media reported that the agency on Saturday arrested Syed Muneer-ul-Hassan Qadri, a resident of Hurhama, Lolab, in Kupwara during its investigation.

"The Jammu and Kashmir Police played a key role in the arrest of the accused," he said. "Preliminary interrogation of the accused revealed that the attack was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in furtherance of a well-planned conspiracy from Pakistan."

Seven soldiers, including two officers and three unidentified militants, were killed after terrorists had stormed an army installation in Nagrota on the outskirts of Jammu city on November 29, 2016.

On December 7 in the same year, the premier anti-terror probe agency had started the probe into the deadly terror attack.

Mittal said the accused has revealed that he, along with other Kashmir-based JeM operatives, were in touch with the JeM leadership in Pakistan.

"He has admitted to having received a freshly infiltrated group of three Pakistani militants from the Samba sector a day before the attack," he said.

"They subsequently stayed at a hotel in Jammu and then left the attackers at Nagrota outside the army camp late at night and proceeded to the Kashmir valley," Mittal said.

Since September 2013, the fidayeen have again started hitting the defence establishments and other government buildings in Jammu and Kashmir, a trend similar to 1999-2002.

Jaish was instrumental in carrying the fidayeen phase of attacks in Kashmir from early to mid last decade.

Advocating the idea of pan-Islamism, Jaish was founded by 49-year-old Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000 after he was released in exchange for passengers of an Indian Airlines.

Less than two and half months before the fidayeen attack at the Parliament on December 13, 2001, another extremely deadly attack, on the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly, using a car bomb on October 1, 2001, was the handiwork of Jaish.

More than 40 people were killed and many more injured in that incident.