In a grim reminder of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, India, yet again, is in possession of clinching evidence of a well hatched conspiracy by Pakistan to carry out terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country including the national capital. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a chargesheet against alleged top Lashkar terrorist Bahadur Ali, who had claimed in his confession that the recent unrest in the Kashmir valley following the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani had been orchestrated by Pakistan.
After the NIA made public his confessional statement causing deep embarrassment to Islamabad months ago, it has now chargesheeted Ali alias Saifulla Mansoor, a Pakistani national hailing from Jia Bagga of Lahore in Punjab. Pakistan accused him of conspiring on behalf of the proscribed Lashkar to carry out terror strikes in the country. In its chargesheet, NIA said that the data retrieved from GPS device recovered from Ali contained the coordinates of the Mandakuli ‘launching pad’ of the LeT.
The pocket diary, among many other things, recovered from Bahadur Ali contains the name of several towns in JK — Rafiabad, Kunzar, Tangmarg, Budgam, Poonch, Jammu and Udhampur besides Delhi. The NIA has said that as part of the conspiracy of LeT, Ali along with his two associates, Abu Saad and Abu Darda, illegally infiltrated into Indian territory by crossing the LoC. At the time of crossing into Indian territory, on the intervening night of June 12 2016 and June 13 2016, these terrorists were equipped with arms and ammunition, navigation equipment, combat material and other articles.
These terrorists entered Indian territory with an intention to carry out terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and different places of the country including Delhi, as per instructions given to them by their handlers of the LeT based in Pakistan/ POK, it says.
"After crossing the LoC fence, the three terrorists, Bahadur Ali (A-1), Abu Saad and Abu Darda, walked for about seven days following the Grid References with the aid of the GPS devices that had been provided to them by Abu Haider at the Mandakuli ‘launching pad’. The infiltrating terrorists had been provided with eight Grid References, the eighth denoting their final destination," says the chargesheet.
Investigation conducted by the NIA has once again thrown light on the well-oiled terror machinery that continues to operate from Pakistani soil and terror launching pads in Pakistani territory continue to give training and recruitment to vulnerable Pakistani youth to wage war against India. "Once recruited, these impressionable young men are put through various training regimes with the twin objectives of radicalizing their worldview and providing them with ‘military’ skills. Subsequent to their training, these trained cadres of LeT are illegally pushed into Indian territory where they commit terrorist acts with the help of network of their supporters and facilitators," says an NIA official.
Investigation has established that Ali was provided Grid References and map sheets depicting parts of PoK and JK. It has been affirmed by the Surveyor General of India in Dehradun that Ali had indeed plotted the Grid References correctly. "This clearly establishes that Bahadur Ali is well conversant with the use of the map sheet and that he has received training in the subject," says NIA.
The NIA chargesheet also lays bare the new techniques being employed by the Lashkar to avoid interception by Indian agencies once they start communicating with the infiltrated terrorists. When the infiltrating terrorists reached a hillock at about noon on June 20, 2016 near village Wadar in Handwara (J&K), which was the sixth of the eight Grid References, Abu Saad had sent a message to one of his handlers, ‘Walid Bhai’, by pairing his mobile phone with his wireless set, a communication technique especially designed by the LeT to avoid interception.
The NIA has evidence to prove that Bahadur Ali had established contact with Alfa-3, the LeT control station based in PoK, through his wireless set . He was also asked to contact local persons, for food and logistics support, whose identity is still being established by the probe agency. "During this period, Alfa-3 communicated to Bahadur Ali that the LeT cadres had been successful in fuelling large-scale agitation in Kashmir after the death of Burhan Wani in Kashmir. He instructed Bahadur Ali to mix with the protestors and throw grenades at the security forces in order to further fuel the agitation in the Kashmir valley," says the NIA.
Ali was apprehended by the security forces on July 25, 2016 when he was supposed to recieve a group of terrorists to assist him in his nefarious designs. Ali also disclosed that he had hid arms and ammunition near a big tree in the forest near village Yahama. Based on his disclosure, Indian agencies recovered one AK-47 rifle, five AK-47 magazines loaded with ammunition (30 rounds each, total 150 rounds), one UBGL, five live UBGL shells, two live hand grenades (Chinese) and several items having the label ‘Made in Pakistan’.
