Pulwama terror attack: Even after a year, NIA unable to trace source of explosives

A year after the Pulwama terror attack where 40 CRPF personnel were killed, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has not been able to trace the source of high grade explosives used by the car-borne suicide bomber.

Adil Ahmad Dar, a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist, rammed a car into a CRPF bus on the Jammu-Srinagar highway near Pulwama on February 14, 2019.

A senior government official said the explosives could not have been purchased off the shelf as it was “warfare ammunition generally found in military stores.” A forensic report said that around 25 kg of plastic explosives were used.

An NIA official said the explosives packed in the car were “ammonium nitrate, nitro-glycerine and RDX”.

The investigation has hit hurdles and the NIA could not file a chargesheet as all key suspects are dead.

Two main suspects-Mudasir Ahmed Khan and Sajjad Bhat, were killed in an encounter with security forces last year in March and June respectively.
Jaish video

After the attack, Jaish released a video claiming credit for the attack. They identified the attacker as Dar, a resident of Kakapora in Pulwama who joined the outfit in 2018. In the video, Dar is seen carrying a sophisticated weapon and sitting in the backdrop of a black and white flag. He says that “by the time the video was released, he would be in heaven”.