NIA Grills Two Jailed “Terrorist Associates” as Key Leads Link Pahalgam Attack to Lashkar-E-Taiba
Srinagar: A day after media reports suggesting that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has uncovered evidence that the April 22 deadly terror attack in the Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam valley was orchestrated by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) with active support and directives from the neighbouring country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) surfaced, the sleuths of (India’s) premier counterterrorism and law enforcement agency on Saturday grilled “terrorist associates” Nissar Ahmed and Mushtaq Hussein lodged in a Jammu jail.
The duo was arrested by the NIA in September 2023 on charges of sheltering terrorists involved in a terror attack that had taken place at Upper Dhangri, a remote village of frontier Rajouri district, in January that year.
[On the evening of January 1, 2023, two heavily armed militants had fired automatic weapons to target three houses of Hindus at Upper Dhangri, leaving four persons dead and six others including two women injured. Next morning, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) kept in a jute sack and left by them inside one of these houses went off killing two children and injuring five other residents. One of the injured civilians died in a Jammu hospital later, taking the death toll to seven]
Ahmed and Hussein, currently lodged in Jammu’s Kot Balwal Jail, had, as per the NIA claim, provided “logistics support to the terrorists who targeted innocent civilians at Upper Dhangri and sheltered them for more than two months in a hideout that they had constructed on the orders of Pakistan-based LeT handlers”.
The NIA has grilled them as part of its actively interrogating suspects to establish connections between the perpetrators of the Pahalgam carnage and potential groups or individuals involved. The NIA formally took over the probe into the gory incident on April 27 following orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The NIA teams had reached Baisaran on April 23 and have since been camping at the terror attack site, the sources said. It is said that the agency has uncovered significant leads, and interrogations are focusing on tying these incidents to a larger terror network.
The investigations, as per some media reports, have revealed operational details, including the involvement of LeT operatives Hashmi Musa (Suleman) and Ali Bhai (Talha Bhai), who sneaked into J&K from Pakistan around April 15, and executed the attack under ISI directives.
The NIA Director General Sadanand Date visited Baisaran on Thursday where he spent about three hours surveying the attack site. He was accompanied by senior NIA officials, including Inspector General Vijay Sakhare and Deputy Inspector General Santosh Kumar Meena and their visit was focused on reviewing the ongoing probe, examining forensic evidence, and reconstructing the sequence of events with eyewitness accounts.
The NIA teams have questioned eyewitnesses including local tour operators, pony wallas, Zip Line operators, the owners and staff of eateries and cafes and others and also the survivors of the horrendous attack including the victims’ families in Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.
On April 27, the NIA had said in a statement in New Delhi that its teams camping at Baisaran and overseen by an IG, a DIG and a SP are examining the eyewitnesses “who had seen the horrifying attack unfold before their eyes at the peaceful and picturesque Baisaran valley.” It added, “The eyewitnesses are being questioned in minute detail to piece together the sequence of events that led to one of the worst terror attacks in Kashmir.”
Meanwhile, some news agencies have while quoting “officials in the know” reported that, before the April 22 terror attack, the intelligence agencies had flagged the potential targeting of tourists especially those staying in hotels on the outskirts of Srinagar in the foothills of the Zabarwan range.
According to these reports, this prompted a heightened security presence in these areas with top police brass camping in Srinagar to oversee combing operations around Dachigam, Nishat, and adjacent areas. These areas gained attention and security forces increased patrolling because of a terrorist attack on a construction site in Gangangir near Sonamarg resort in October last year in which seven people including a doctor were killed, the agencies said, adding that despite a two-week operation during which the security forces conducted extensive searches on the outskirts of Srinagar based on the intelligence, the efforts did not yield any breakthroughs and the operation was called off on April 22, the day when terrorists targeted tourists in Pahalgam area killing 26 of them.
They further said that there were inputs to suggest that terrorists wanted to carry out such nefarious designs during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier last month to flag off the first train from Katra to Srinagar. “Definitely, Pakistan is not happy over the impending railway link that aims to connect the Kashmir Valley with the rest of the country”, the unnamed officials were quoted as saying.
However, they said the visit of the Prime Minister, earlier scheduled for April 19, was postponed due to adverse weather forecasts predicting high-speed winds in the Katra area.
The officials made it clear that while weather conditions are the sole reason for the postponement, fresh inauguration dates are expected to be announced soon.