Jammu and Kashmir: Pulwama-like attack averted, 52 kg explosives found, says Army

The Indian Army on Thursday said that it averted a major attack in Jammu and Kashmir by discovering 52 kilograms of explosives, not far from the site of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.

The Army said in a statement that the explosives were found in a joint search operation launched in the morning in Garikal in Pulwama. “During the search op [operation], a dug in syntax tank was spotted,” Defence Spokesperson Colonel Rajesh Kalia said. “Detailed search led to recovery of 416 packets of explosives, each packet of 125 g [grams] making a total of 52 Kgs, were recovered.”

The spokesperson added that the Army also recovered 50 detonators from a second water tank.

“We have averted another Pulwama-type attack,” an unidentified Army official told PTI. The official added that the explosives are called “Super-90” or S-90 in short.

In February 2019, forty Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed after an explosive-laden car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into their bus in Pulwama. Last month, the National Investigation Agency had filed a chargesheet in the case. Nineteen people, including Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and his brother Rauf Asghar, were named in the chargesheet.

The NIA claimed that the main conspirator was Jaish terrorist Umar Farooq, the son of Ibrahim Athar, the main accused in the 1999 IC-814 hijack. They added that Athar is the older brother of Masood Azhar. The chargesheet stated that 20 kg of RDX was smuggled from Pakistan via Samba in Jammu by Farooq, who was killed by special forces in Kashmir in March last year. “Farooq also visited Afghanistan for explosives training in 2016-17,” the NIA said.

The NIA’s investigation also revealed that Pakistan used Adil Ahmad Dar, the suicide bomber who rammed the CRPF convoy on February 14, because it wanted to project the attack as a result of a home-grown militancy against “India’s occupation of Kashmir”.