JAMMU: National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Counter Intelligence (CI) wing of J&K Police on Thursday achieved a breakthrough in the Nagrota terror attack case by picking up a computer shop-owner from Swankha Morh in District Samba.
His brother, who is running a medical shop in Nanga village in border area in Ramgarh Sector, was, however, absconding.
Seven army personnel, including two officers were martyred in the fidayeen attack on November 29.
Sources informed that medicines recovered from the possession of slain fidayeen were purchased from the shop of absconding person.
The computer hardware and software shop owner has been identified as Prem Lal while his brother, Pangu is absconding. Surprisingly, the medical shop license is also on the name of Prem Lal, sources said.
With this breakthrough, at least the claim of BSF officers that the fidayeen didn’t infiltrate from the border-belt in Jammu but from Kashmir has been nullified.
Reliable sources informed that a Tata Sumo was used to drop fidayeen at Nagrota, hunt for which has been started. The NIA and CI sleuths have gathered some evidences to link the involvement of terror modules operating in the border belts of Samba sector.
Role of trans-border smugglers is also being scrutinized, sources said, adding “after the suspicious death of Akhnoor based notorious trans-border smuggler Sarfu inside the JIC lock up in 2012, the trans-border smugglers were operating from Samba sector.”
On November 29, fidayeens, who stormed the army camp at Nagrota used a silencer-fitted weapon to kill sentry before gaining entry into the army camp.
After sneaking into the camp from the rear, the massive and thick vegetation provided natural cover to fidayeens. Later, drones were pressed into the service which helped the snipers eliminate the terrorists inside the camp.
Initially it was speculated that the terrorists could have travelled to the army camp from Kashmir, a possibility that was rejected after the vehicular movement was scrutinised from the CCTVs installed at vantage points along the National Highway linking the Valley.
On Dec 7, the NIA registered a case at its police station in Delhi following instructions from the Union Home Ministry in connection with the November 29 terror attack on Army base in Nagrota.
The case has been filed for offences under Sections 120B, 121 and 307 of the Ranbir Penal Code or RPC and Sections 7 and 27 of the Arms Act, 1958.