Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 20: Twelve people were charged in a case relating to a terror attack in April that occurred before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba after Article 370 was repealed.
Five Pakistani terrorists, including the leader of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit, were among them, an official said on Wednesday.
According to a federal agency spokesperson, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed the charge sheet in a special court in Jammu against JeM leader Masood Azhar Alvi alias Maulana, a resident of Bahawalpur (Pakistan), his four Pakistan-based associates, two deceased terrorists, and five residents of Kashmir.
While two Pashto-speaking terrorists who had crossed the border using a covert tunnel and were being transported from Samba to Jammu were killed in the clash on April 22, a CISF officer died and nine others, including two policemen, were hurt in the terrorist attack that happened just two days before the Prime Minister’s scheduled visit.
“The chargesheet was filed against 12 accused in the case relating to the conspiracy hatched among Kashmir-based terrorist operatives, Pakistan-based handlers and terrorists of banned terrorist outfit JeM, in furtherance to which, two JeM terrorists were infiltrated into India through a (cross-border) tunnel,” the NIA spokesperson said.
According to the NIA, the tunnel was dug on the International Border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, in the vicinity of Border Outpost Chack Faqira, in an effort to thwart the Prime Minister’s planned visit to the Jammu region.
The security personnel were able to stop the terrorists’ march, and both were killed in a shootout with them in the Sunjwan neighbourhood on the outskirts of Jammu city, the official added. The spokesperson stated that the case was re-registered by the NIA on April 26 after being initially lodged on April 22 at Jammu’s Bahu Fort police station.
