Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 26: The National Investigating Agency (NIA) today took the custody of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative Muneer-ul-Hassan Qadri from the Jammu and Kashmir Police in connection with the 2016 terror attack on an Army camp in Nagrota in which seven soldiers, including two officers, were martyred and all three fidayeen militants were eliminated by the troops.
Qadri, a Nepal returnee who was in custody of the police for some time, had told his interrogators about his role in various terror modules, including the group involved in the Nagrota attack. He has also revealed modus operandi of the militants including infiltration of militants including their infiltration from the International Border (IB) in Samba sector and stay at a Jammu City hotel before carrying out the fidayeen attack on Nagrota Army camp on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in the morning of November 29, 2016.
Official sources told the Excelsior that Qadri, a resident of Lolab in North Kashmir, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the terrorist attack on the Army camp on November 29, 2016, in which seven Army personnel including two officers were martyred and three others injured. The NIA has appreciated the role of Jammu and Kashmir Police in making the arrest of militant, wanted in Nagrota terror attack for the past one and a half year.
Three Pakistani terrorists were killed in the operation and a huge quantity of firearms, ammunition, explosives and other articles were seized from them. The Union Home Minister had handed over investigations of the case to the NIA immediately.
Preliminary interrogation of the accused revealed that the attack was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a banned terror group, in furtherance of a well planned conspiracy from Pakistan, sources said.
The accused claimed to have told the interrogators that he along with other Valley-based JeM operatives were in touch with the JeM leadership in Pakistan and had received a freshly infiltrated group of three Pakistani terrorists from Samba sector along the International Border on Jammu-Pathankot National Highway a day before the attack.
They subsequently stayed at a hotel in Jammu City and then left the attackers outside the Army camp in Nagrota late at night, and proceeded to the Kashmir valley, sources said.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had registered a case into the incident in December 2016 for offences under Sections 120B, 121, 307 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) and Sections seven and 27 of the Arms Act, 1958.
Sustained interrogation of the accused was on to ascertain identity of his other associates, who had helped the Pakistani militants in carrying out the attack on Nagrota Army camp, sources said, adding that some more arrests could be made shortly as further investigations in the case were in progress.
However, all the three militants, who had carried out the attack on the Army camp after infiltrating from the International Border in Samba, had been killed in the gunbattle, which had lasted two days.
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