Jammu and Kashmir Police on April 7 arrested three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants from two South Kashmir Districts of Shopian and Pulwama, who had planned Pulwama-like terror attack at Banihal on March 31 and were in the process of fabricating more car bombs to target Security Force (SF) convoys on the Highways and other major roads, reports Daily Excelsior. While Umar Khalid and Aqib Javed were arrested from Shopian, Waseem Ahmad was taken into custody from Pulwama. All of them have been shifted to the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC) in Jammu under tight security for sustained questioning. Preliminary investigations revealed that the militants were well trained and motivated and were operating in South Kashmir, where they were being handled by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ‘divisional commander’, Amir Bhai, who had tasked them to fabricate car bomb and target SF convoy on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway (NH). The arrested militants were experts in fabricating Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) especially the car bombs and were instrumental in converting Hyundai car into a car bomb, which the militant drove from Shopian to Banihal before triggering the blast near CRPF convoy in which the car was gutted but the CRPF personnel in the convoy had narrow escape.
Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) decided to handover the case of unsuccessful attack on CRPF convoy at Banihal on the morning of March 31, to the National Investigating Agency (NIA), reports Daily Excelsior. All formalities in this regard were being completed and order to this regard was expected to be issued soon.