The National Investigation Agency has taken over the probe into the militant attack on an Indian Army unit in the town of Nagrota in Jammu and Kashmir, PTI reported on Wednesday. The agency has also registered at least two First Information Reports in the case at Delhi and Jammu.
In a statement, the agency said the militants who attacked the Army unit had “foreign handlers”. The attackers fired indiscriminately on security personnel “with the intention to kill them”, the investigators said. The case was filed under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Arms Act, and the Ranbir Penal Code. A team of the agency’s officers have been sent to Jammu to visit the site of the attack.
The move comes a day after the Army expressed its reluctance to hand over the case to the NIA, The Hindu reported. The Army had asked the the agency to prepare a “specific brief” on the case and said that it would continue to investigate the “operational and tactical aspects” of the attack.
Seven soldiers – two Army officers and five jawans – were killed by three militants in the attack on November 29. All three attackers were killed in retaliatory firing. Documents written in Urdu claiming the incident as “the first instalment in revenge for killing Afzal Guru” were recovered from the militants. It also said the Nagrota attack was the work of “holy warriors fighting for Ghazwa-e-Hind”.
The incident took place two months after the Indian Army launched surgical strikes on militant camps along the Line of Control on September 29.
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