Pulwama Attack Sawmill owner who gave shelter, smartphone to terrorists arrested
TNN Bureau. Updated: 7/8/2020 10:55:23 AM
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JAMMU: The NIA has arrested one more person for allegedly providing logistical support including high-end mobile phones used in hatching the conspiracy and planning the 2019 attack on a CRPF convoy in which 40 personnel lost their lives in South Kashmir.
Bilal Ahmed Kuchey, a resident of Kakpora of Pulwama district, is the seventh person to be arrested in connection with the attack. He was produced before a designated court in Jammu on Monday which remanded him in 10 days of NIA custody.
Kuchey, who owns a sawmill, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after evidence pointed out that the hatchers of the conspiracy including the lone suicide bomber Adil Ahmed Dar stayed at his residence in Pulwama in South Kashmir.
“Bilal is a militant associate who harboured and extended logistic support to the JeM militants involved in the Pulwama attack. The main perpetrators in the case stayed in his house and he further introduced them to other over ground workers (OGWs) who provided safe houses during their stay and planning of the attack,” an official said.
Officials said he had allowed the terrorists to use his house as a hideout and also provided them with the high-end mobile phones used for communication with Pakistan-based handlers of the Jaish-e-Mohammed.
“He provided the JeM militants with high-end mobile phones which were used by them to communicate with the Pakistan-based JeM leadership as well as among themselves for giving final touches to their planning and for execution of the attack,” the investigating agency said in its statement.
One of mobile phones was used by Dar for recording his last video, they said.
On February 14 last year, the suicide bomber blew himself up next to a CRPF bus, which was part of a 78-vehicle convoy carrying over 2,500 personnel on their way from Jammu to Srinagar. Forty CRPF personnel were killed.
The NIA said that Kuchey is a "terror associate" of Jaish and he had introduced the perpetrators of the crime to other overground workers during their stay at his residence.
The probe into the Pulwama terror strike had virtually reached a dead end with five persons, who were either conspirators or executors of the ghastly attack, being eliminated by security forces in various encounters.