Terrorists Involved in Pulwama Attack Wanted to Target Media – NIA

Srinagar : According to the charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Mohammad Omar Farooq, the nephew of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, who carried out the Pulwama attack on 14 February 2019, wanted to target a team of BBC journalists. The suicide bomber wanted to attack journalists who had gone to the home of Adil Ahmed Dar to interview his father Ghulam Hasan Dar.

The National Investigation Agency cited a conversation between Omar Farooq and his Pakistan-based uncle Ammar Alvi on 21 February 2019, stating that Farooq wanted to target BBC journalists in the Valley. He felt that doing so would attract international attention to Jaish-e-Mohammed. To ensure this, the NIA has heard the conversation between the two, although it is not clear whether the journalists were present in the valley at that time.

According to the chargesheet, Alvi Nefarooq was asked to “celebrate the success of the Pulwama attack” and refused permission to attack the reporters. The names of those BBC journalists have not been given in the charge sheet. The charge sheet mentions 46-year-old Alvi as the leading handler in the Pulwama attack. Along with this, the names of Farooq, Azhar, Abdul Ruf Asgar, and 15 others have also been written. The NIA has discovered some of Alvi’s 2016 photographs in which he is seen with Farooq at a training center in Sangin in Helmand province, Afghanistan.