india

Updated: Feb 24, 2019 08:22 IST

A Jaish –e- Mohammed (JeM) terrorist suspected of involvement in a December 2017 attack on the Lethpora CRPF Group Centre that left five troopers dead is emerging as a key suspect in the February 14 suicide car bombing that killed 40 men of the Central Reserve Police Force in Pulwama, a senior official in the security establishment said.

Security forces killed three JeM terrorists in the Lethpora attack. They were later identified as Fardeen Ahmed Khandey, Manzoor Baba and Abdul Shakoor. Investigations later revealed that Shakoor was a Pakistani national. Investigations had pointed to a fourth JeM terrorist who was involved in providing logistics. “We have strong reason to believe that there is a link between the Lethpora attack and the suicide bombing of 14 February,” the official cited above said, declining to reveal details.

“Security agencies initially did intercept communication from the suspected fourth terrorist, but the communication suddenly stopped.”

Recently, in the first week of February 2019, the NIA arrested Fayaz Ahmad Magray, a resident of Avantipora, for helping the three JeM terrorist who took part in the Lethpora attack. An NIA statement after the arrest said Magray was an “overground worker” of JeM who had provided the three terrorists shelter and had even reconnoitered the CRPF camp before the December 2017 attack.

While investigators of the NIA and local police are following a bewildering maze of clues, efforts to trace the vehicle used for the suicide bombing hasn’t met with success.

The NIA approached automaker Maruti Suzuki to help trace the vehicle using components in the explosives-laden car the suicide bomber drove into a bus carrying CRPF personnel. “Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any progress,” a second senior official in the security establishment, who did not want to named, said.