The National investigation Agency on Monday identified the owner of the vehicle used in the suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir as Sajjad Bhat, PTI reported. A spokesperson for the agency said Bhat has joined the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which claimed responsibility for the February 14 terror attack.
Officers of the National Investigation Agency identified the vehicle as a Maruti Eeco with the help of forensic and automobile experts, reported ANI. Bhat, a resident of Bijbehara in Anantnag district, has been evading arrest since the attack.
An NIA spokesperson said the vehicle’s chassis number was MA3ERLF1SOO183735 and engine number G12BN164140, reported PTI. The vehicle was first sold to Mohammed Jaleel Ahmed Haqani, a resident of Heaven Colony in Anantnag in 2011, and it subsequently changed hands seven times until it was taken over by Bhat, who was a student at Siraj-ul-Uloom in Shopian.
The agency spokesperson said the vehicle was purchased on February 4. An NIA team and police searched Bhat’s house on Saturday, but he was not present. Bhat had joined the Jaish-e-Mohammed and a photograph of him holding weapons had appeared on social media, according to ANI.
The National Investigation Agency took over the case from the Jammu and Kashmir Police on February 20. A day after the attack, the agency had gathered explosive material from the blast site.
Forty Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed when a vehicle laden with explosives drove into a bus in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir.
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