In J&K, forces foil Pulwama-like car bombing plot

In February 2019, an explosive-laden vehicle rammed into a bus that was part of a CRPF convoy, killing 40 personnel.

Police officers said that on the basis of an intelligence input, checkpoints were set up at different places in Pulwama district on Wednesday night. Late in the night, a car didn’t stop at a checkpoint in the Rajpora area.

“When the car did not stop, security personnel fired warning shots on the Shajimarg-Rajpora axis. The vehicle was later tracked to a nearby village and the area was cordoned by joint forces for the whole night,” a senior officer said.

#WATCH J&K: In-situ explosion of the vehicle, which was carrying IED, by Police in Pulwama.

Major incident of vehicle-borne IED explosion was averted by Police, CRPF & Army after Pulwama Police got credible info last night that a terrorist was moving with an explosive-laden car pic.twitter.com/UnUHSYB07C

— ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2020

The officer said the car had a fake registration number and the forces found an IED fitted in a drum inside the car.

On Thursday morning, sources said, a bomb disposal squad destroyed the explosives in the car through a controlled explosion.

Addressing the media, Kashmir IGP Kumar said Pulwama Police had received inputs that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen are going to carry out a suicide attack and have “got a Santro car and fitted IED”.

“… yesterday evening, nakas were put… when the car didn’t stop, our forces opened warning fire. The militant escaped. In the next naka, forces again opened fire and since it was dark, the militant left the car and escaped… our input was that (a) JeM militant is carrying (out) this activity. They had plans to do this on Jang-e-Badr (during Ramzan), but that time we took a lot of preventive measures and a lot of cordon and search operations were launched. We suspect Adil, who is a Hizbul Mujahideen militant and is also with JeM. A Pakistan commander Fouji Bhai is also involved in this,” he said.

Saying that the attack plan was similar to that of the Pulwama attack, he said, “They would have targeted security forces or a police vehicle…we are calling experts from outside. Primary investigation reveals that nitrate salt and nitroglycerin was used. In the morning, we said the weight (of IED) could be 25 kg, but since the debris went up in the air to 50 m (after the controlled explosion), it looks like 40-45 kg of explosives were there,” he said.

An Army release on Thursday said, “Neutralization of this vehicle based IED has averted a major Pulwama style fidayeen attack on the Security Forces. Operations will be intensified in coming days to deny any opportunity to terrorists for staging such dastardly attacks.”