Pulwama attack: Four of five terrorists involved killed and one arrested, Centre tells Parliament
A vehicle-borne suicide bomber drove into a convoy of paramilitary troops on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in February, killing 40 people.
The Centre on Tuesday told the Lok Sabha that four of the five terrorists involved in February’s Pulwama terror attack were killed, and one of them was arrested, PTI reported. The attack, orchestrated by the Jaish-e-Mohammad group, had killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers on February 14.
“Out of five accused, one was a suicide bomber. One accused was arrested, while two others were neutralised during pro-active engagement by the security forces,” Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy said in response to a written question in the Lower House. “One of the accused, Mudasir Ahmad Khan alias Mohammed Bhai, was neutralised during proactive engagement by the security forces.” He added that a Court of Inquiry was ordered by Central Reserve Police Force to look into various aspects of the attack.
On June 26, Reddy had told the Lok Sabha that there was no intelligence failure in the Pulwama terror attack. The previous day, he had told the Lok Sabha that over 700 terrorists were killed in Jammu and Kashmir in the last three years. “Security forces are taking effective and continuous action in countering terrorism,” he had said.
On February 26, in response to the attack, Indian Air Force jets struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp in Balakot in Khyber Paktunkhwa province of Pakistan. The next day, Pakistani and Indian jets engaged in a dogfight near the Line of Control. Pakistan captured an IAF pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, but released him on March 1.
