To this day, a mention of the Pulwama attack fills our hearts with an irreplaceable sense of pain and loss. What follows is pounding rage towards the culprits and perpetrators behind the gruesome attack which led to the death of 40 brave CRPF jawans in South Kashmir on February 14, 2019.

However, the 18-month long probe into the Pulwama terror attack, spearheaded by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) officially came to an end with the filing of the chargesheet at a Jammu special court which named 19 people, including JeM chief Masood Azhar, for planning and executing the fatal operation. 

© Twitter JammuNews

By presenting the crucial 13,500-page chargesheet, the NIA marked the culmination of a year-and-a-half long "painstaking and meticulous investigation” and now, we list down 5 ground-breaking evidence which help the NIA make a breakthrough in this otherwise “blind case” sprinkled with dead ends.

1. Since most of the things which could have been utilised as evidence in the case was blown into pieces with the blast, NIA had to make use of a number of forensic tests including DNA profiling to find the initial cracks in the dead ends. 

© Twitter Live Wire

2. Establishing the ownership of the car used by suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar for the attack was crucial, but nothing was available. However, detailed forensic methods and painstaking investigations, the serial number of the car was successfully put together. This helped to identify the owners of the car - from the first to the last, namely Sajjad Bhat of Bijbehara, who had joined JeM and was eventually killed in an encounter in June 2019. 

3. Human remains from various spots at the scene of the attack were picked up by the agency and sent for DNA profiling. That is how the identity of the suicide attacker Adil Ahmed Dar was acertained and later confirmed by matching the DNA extracted from the car fragments with that of Dar’s father. 

© Twitter szarabi

4. The video shared by JeM spokesperson Mohd Hassan claiming that his group was responsible for the attack, was sent for forensic examination and the IP address was traced back to a computer located in Pakistan.

5. The NIA chargesheet has named Jem chief Masood Azhar’s nephew, Mohammed Umar Farooq, as the main mastermind behind the attack. Reportedly, Farooq had infiltrated into the Indian soil in April 2018 and was eventually killed in an encounter last year. 

6. After Farooq's encounter, several items were recovered by the Jammu and Kashmir Police including a Rs 70,000 Samsung S-9 Galaxy phone which came with double encryption. J&K Police later handed over the phone to Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) so that data could be recovered.

© Twitter Ss22Shweta

7. The data retrieved from Farooq’s phone played a crucial role in revealing greater details related to the attack. Hundreds of deleted videos and photographs which were sent to Farooq's uncle Maulana Mohammed Ammar via WhatsApp, were recovered. 

8. Apart from these footage shot by the terrorists, the agency also found traces of the infiltrating group bringing RDX with it from the Jammu sector IB. The recovered videos also included several takes of the confessional video shot by Adil Ahmad Dar.

© BCCL

9. Apart from the phone, reports also suggest that a team led by NIA Joint Director Anil Shukla gathered evidence and statements of terrorists and their sympathisers who had been arrested in different cases to uncover the conspiracy.

10. NIA investigators put in painstaking efforts to establish valid proof to find a link between the Jaish terrorists killed in 20-odd encounters and the Pulwama terror attack.

Scary shit, right?

View the full article