New Delhi: In a new twist to the turmoil in Kashmir, the NIA on Wednesday claimed it was being orchestrated by Pakistan-based LeT and that it was gathering further evidence of the terror group’s role in fuelling the unrest, triggered by the encounter killing of a militant leader.
Armed with a confessional video of a captured LeT militant, Inspector General of NIA Sanjeev Singh told reporters that since the summer this year, the banned outfit, with the “help of Pakistani forces deployed on the border”, pushed heavily armed terrorists into India with the direction to mix with the local people, create disturbance, and attack police and security forces.
The video shows 21-year-old Bahadur Ali, a resident of Raiwind in Lahore, spilling beans about LeT’s role in the disturbances. He is also shown speaking about the LeT’s sophisticated communication network and assistance rendered to it by the Pakistani army.
Ali, who was arrested on July 25 this year from Yahama village in Handwara in North Kashmir, was in one of the groups allegedly instructed to take advantage of the current situation and throw grenades at the security forces by mixing with the protesters.
“During communications with Ali, Alpha-3 (a communication centre in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir) told that the LeT cadres had been successful in fuelling large-scale agitation in Kashmir after Eid subsequent to the death of Burhan Wani.
“Further investigation is continuing on the disclosure of Bahadur Ali regarding his role in the present unrest in Kashmir,” Singh said.
The anti-terror probe agency also said it is gathering further evidence regarding the role of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba in the ongoing turbulence in the Valley for the last 33 days.
The National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) comments came a day after India handed over a “strong demarche” to Pakistan over its continued support to cross-border terrorism in India.
NIA also showed to the media a video of Ali alias Saifullah, a Punjabi-speaking man, talking about his family, the time he spent in the terror outfit and his crossing over to the Indian side of the border.
Ali told his interrogators that he was informed by his handlers from a control room code-named ‘Alpha-3’, believed to located at a high altitude somewhere in PoK, about the unrest in the Valley following the killing of Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen militant on July 8.
His handlers from the control room asked him to throw grenades at the security forces and also informed him that other cadres of the terror group had managed to sneak into the Valley, mingled with protesters and were fuelling tension in the Valley.
This is for the first time that NIA has shown a video statement of a captured militant. Pakistan had earlier this year shown a video statement of Kulbhushan Yadav, an Indian national arrested in Balochistan in March over charges of spying for the Indian intelligence agencies.