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No evidence yet on Pune girl’s alleged suicide mission: J-K police
The girl, who turned 18 in November last year, had come from Pune and was staying in Bijbehara near Anantnag as a paying guest and planning to join the ISIS, police had alleged after detaining her.
Investigators are yet to establish with evidence that an 18-year-old Pune girl detained in Jammu and Kashmir was planning a suicide attack in the state on Republic Day, police said on Saturday.
State police caught the teenager, who is from the Pune neighbourhood of Yerawada, on Thursday following “strong inputs” from intelligence agencies that a woman from the Maharashtra city will attempt to blow herself up with explosives at the Republic Day function in Srinagar.
“We are verifying each and everything. As of now we have no evidence against her to prove she was on a suicide mission,” additional director general of police Munir Khan said.
Khan refused to reveal the purpose of her visit, but news reports that couldn’t be independently verified said she had enrolled in a nursing college in south Kashmir.
According to director general of police Shesh Paul Vaid, she is still under detention. “Let’s confirm completely. Nothing has come to fore till now. Let us investigate completely,” Vaid said.
The girl, who turned 18 in November last year, had come from Pune and was staying in Bijbehara near Anantnag as a paying guest and planning to join the ISIS, police had alleged after detaining her.
After extensive questioning, the school dropout said to have revealed radical thoughts that she had allegedly acquired from online propaganda and sought to join terrorists group Islamic State, officer said.
Police had got in touch with her mother and aunt, and there were plans to hand her to them as there’s no previous case against the girl in the Kashmir Valley or in Maharashtra.
Additional DGP Khan told reporters on Friday that police were “working on all the leads”, but clarified that “it is yet to be ascertained, verified, authenticated whether she actually is a suicide bomber or not”.
“Only after proper investigation we will be able to come to any conclusion,” he said.
The Republic Day celebrations ended peacefully across the Valley, including the central function at Sher-i-Kashmir stadium in Srinagar.
(with agency inputs)
