Pulwama Attack: NIA arrests father-daughter duo in Pulwama

SRINAGAR — The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested a father-daughter duo for their alleged involvement in the Lethpora attack in Pulwama district of southern Kashmir on February 14 last year.

Reports reaching here said that the NIA sleuths accompanied by police and CRPF carried out the raid in a residential house of Tariq Ahmad Shah son of Mohammad Maqbool Shah at Hakripora village early morning.

After conducting searches, the police arrested the house owner Tariq Ahmad and his daughter Insha Tariq (26) and took them to the concerned police station, they said.

After being quizzed in the police station for some time, the father-daughter duo was later handed over to NIA for further questioning, they said.

Confirming it, an officer of NIA said that their role has surfaced in connection with the Lethpora attack. “The conspiracy regarding the attack had taken place in their house,” the officer said, adding, “We have also seized incriminating material during the raid.”

The mother of Insha said that her daughter and husband were innocent. “My husband is a labourer who extracts sand and Bajri from a local water body. Insha is also innocent,” the woman said.

Meanwhile, the NIA also carried out searches in the residential houses of a Junior Engineer (JE) Ghulam Hyder Ganie and another person Abdul Qayoom Malik at Chinar Colony Bagh-e-Mehtab here in Srinagar.

The arrest and searches come days after NIA arrested 22-year-old Shakir Bashir Magrey, an alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative.

Magrey, according to NIA, had tracked the movement of CRPF convoys and helped assemble the bomb used in the attack that killed at least 40 paramilitary personnel.

A furniture shop owner and resident of Hajibal, Kakapora in Pulwama, Shakir, as per NIA, had started conducting reconnaissance of the movement of CRPF convoy on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway in January 2019, and informed militants.

Magrey is presently under police remand on orders by the NIA Special Court at Jammu.