Shakir Bashir Magrey, a 22-year-old furniture shop owner in south Kashmir, is an overground worker of the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is said to have made a breakthrough in the Pulwama terror attack case, with the arrest of a 22-year-old furniture shop owner in south Kashmir. Forty CRPF jawans were killed in the suicide attack on February 14, 2019.

The NIA said Magrey, a resident of Kakapora in Pulwama, is an overground worker of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

“Magrey provided shelter and other assistance to suicide-bomber Adil Ahmad Dar. He was introduced to Dar in mid-2018 by Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Umar Farooq, and he became a full-time overground worker of the JeM. During his initial interrogation, he disclosed that on several occasions, he had collected and delivered arms and ammunition, cash and explosives to JeM terrorists, including those involved in the Pulwama attack,” the NIA said in a statement.

The NIA said, “Magrey revealed he had harboured Adil Ahmad Dar and Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Umar Farooq in his house from late 2018 till the attack in February 2019, and assisted them in the preparation of the improvised explosive device (IED).”

On February 14, 2019, Dar rammed a car into a CRPF bus on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway, near Pulwama. All 40 jawans in the bus were killed. The JeM is a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit and is headed by UN-designated global terrorist Masood Azhar.

Magrey’s shop is located near the Lethpora bridge, where the attack occurred, and as advised by Umar Farooq, he conducted reconnaissance of the movement of the CRPF convoy in January 2019.

“Further, he was also involved in modifying the car and fitting the IED in it in early February.”

“The explosives used in the attack were determined, through a forensic investigation, to be Ammonium Nitrate, Nitro-Glycerin and RDX,” the NIA said. The NIA is yet to trace the source of the high-grade military explosives.

Also read | Even after a year, NIA unable to trace source of explosives used by Pulwama used by suicide bomber

An NIA official said DNA samples were extracted from the “meagre fragments of the car” and were matched with Dar’s father to establish the suicide-bomber’s identity.

The two main suspects — Mudasir Ahmed Khan and Sajjad Bhat, the owner of the car — were killed in an encounter with security forces on March 3, 2019 and June 16 last respectively.

The third suspect Kamran, an expert in assembling IEDs, and the fourth suspect, Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Umar Farooq, were killed on March 29, 2019. The fifth suspect Qari Mufti Yasser, JeM’s south Kashmir commander, was killed in an encounter on January 25, 2020.

Magrey was produced before the NIA special court in Jammu and remanded in custody for 15 days.

After the attack, the JeM released a video claiming credit for the attack. It identified the suicide-bomber as Dar, a resident of Kakapora in Pulwama, who joined the outfit in 2018.

The car was first sold in 2011 and was then resold several times before Sajjad Bhat bought it on February 4, 10 days before the attack. Mudasir Ahmed Khan, the other suspect killed in an encounter, had arranged the explosives, the NIA had said earlier.