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NIA makes big arrests in connection with Pahalgam terror attack
The development comes a couple of weeks after the agency carried out raids at 32 locations in Kashmir.
The National Investigation Agency has arrested two persons on charges of harbouring the terrorists involved in the terror attack in Pahalgam, PTI news agency quoted NIA officials as saying on Sunday. The April 22 attack claimed the lives of 26 people.
The arrests come after the NIA questioned several local eyewitnesses, including ponywalas, about the incident, with more than 2,000 people being interrogated. Some of the people questioned were also booked under the Public Safety Act. Apart from the federal agency, the Jammu and Kashmir police also raided the houses of more than 100 terror associates.
The NIA also questioned relatives of the victims who lost their lives in and those who survived the Pahalgam terror attack. An NIA official said that the federal agency had come to know many important points about terrorists, and that the federal agency teams comprising senior officers were busy investigating the incident.
The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy outfit of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack.
NIA raids on terror-linked premises
The development comes a couple of weeks after the agency carried out raids at 32 locations in Kashmir, including in Shopian, Kulgam, Pulwama, Sopore and Kupwara.
These belonged to several overground workers with links to Pakistan-based terror groups, people familiar to the developments had said. They said that the raids were conducted by the NIA with assistance from the Jammu and Kashmir police forces and central paramilitary personnel.
While the raids were not explicitly mentioned to be in connection with the Pahalgam terror attack, it was part of the federal agency's crackdown on banned terrorist organisations and their offshoots in a case filed two years ago.
