Nagrota terrorists’ gadgets prove Pak hand in earlier infiltration bid

Pakistan-based terrorist groups have become especially active after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and have been preparing for a major drive in Jammu and Kashmir, according to intelligence reports.

Communication devices recovered from four killed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists at Ban toll plaza on November 19 have provided a vital key to establish that Pakistan was also behind a similar infiltration by the same proscribed group on January 31.

Security officials after the encounter in which four suspected Jaish-e-mohammad terrorists were killed by security forces after they were found hiding in a truck on Srinagar National Highway, near Nagrota, Jammu and Kashmir.(HT photo)

Pakistan-based terrorist groups have become especially active after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and have been preparing for a major drive in Jammu and Kashmir, according to intelligence reports. The reports add that terrorist group Lashar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) is mobilizing cadre from its Chelabandi camp in Muzaffarabad to fresh locations in Neelum Valley across the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan. The Hizbul Mujahideen is training nearly 400 cadre at a newly constructed facility in forest area of Oghi in Khyber-Paktunkhwa (KPK). The Al Badr group is exploring ways to infiltrate into India from Bangladesh after security forces have turned the heat on infiltration across LoC in Kashmir.

But interestingly, the reports say that Jaish operational commander Mufti Rauf Asghar has told his cadre after the November 19 Nagrota encounter that it is becoming difficult to supply “items” to them in Kashmir.

On January 31, Indian security forces gunned down three Jaish terrorists near the same toll plaza and arrested three overground workers after an early morning encounter. Among those arrested was the driver of the truck Sameer Ahmed Dar, first cousin of Adil Dar, the suicide bomber who rammed his explosive laden Maruti Eeco car into a CRPF bus at Pulwama on February 14, 2019, killing all the 40 CRPF personnel on board.

Investigations into November 19 Nagrota encounter have revealed similarities beyond communication devices and firmly established that the Pakistani deep state uses Jaish to infiltrate into India from terror camps at Shakargarh across the Samba border, intelligence officials said. What has shocked the Indian investigators is the engineering detail that went into construction of the tunnel used by the Nagrota attackers to reach the pick-up point at Jatwal, 12 km from the international border. The tunnel, obviously constructed with the help of Pakistani Rangers, is 200 metres long with enough space for terrorists to walk upright and cross the border. The tunnel is 40 metres long on the Pakistani side. “The Shakargarh Jaish camp is a place where Jaish jihadists trained as far away as Peshawar and Bhawalpur assemble to launch into India for terror attacks. The Shakargarh bulge is on the sensitive chicken neck area of India and vital to national security,” said a senior counter terrorism official who asked not to be named.