Srinagar, Feb. 14, 2019: At least 40 members a paramilitary force were killed on February 14 when their convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber.
“One of the vehicles of the convoy was targeted,” said Zulfiqar Hassan, Inspector General (Operations) of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). “It inflicted damage both on vehicles as well as our men,” he added.
The suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into one of the convoy’s buses near Pulwama on the Srinagar-Jammu highway.
The bombing in Pulwama’s Lethpora area also left at least four troops injured and was the deadliest attack in terms of casualties in the last three decades of militancy in the State.
In a post on Twitter, Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed the “Pakistan-based, Pakistan-backed” JeM for the “dastardly” attack.
The injured were shifted to the Army’s 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar, where 40 jawans were either declared dead or succumbed to their injures, an official said.
A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that at about 3:15 pm a sport utility vehicle (SUV) laden with 300 to 350 kilograms of explosives rammed into a CRPF convoy of about 70 vehicles that was on the way to Srinagar from Jammu, as the highway had opened after a week-long closure due to snowfall.
About 2,500 personnel were travelling to the Valley at the time of the attack. Gunshots also followed the blast, according to locals. The personnel under attack belonged to 92, 17 and 54 Battalions of the CRPF.
“Preliminary inputs suggest that it was a remote-controlled detonation with a group of militants overseeing the operation,” said a senior police officer, who declined to be identified.
The explosion was so powerful that it was felt in Srinagar, about 30 km away. Two vehicles, including the one carrying the bomber, were blown into smithereens. Eyewitnesses said only the charred skeletal frames of the blast-hit vehicles were seen on the roadside, while several buses in the convoy sustained severe damage.
The militant attack raises questions over security on the national highway, which is patrolled by three security agencies including the local police, CRPF and Army on a daily basis.
Immediately after the attack, the JeM claimed responsibility and released a picture of its local operative who had carried out the attack. He was identified as Adil Ahmad Dar alias ‘Waqas Commando’, a resident of Pulwama’s Kakapora. According to the police, Dar joined the outfit in 2018 and was a Class 10 dropout.
“The nature of explosive is a matter of investigation,” said Inspector General of Police S.P. Pani. “We are carrying out a post-blast investigation to verify the circumstances,” he added.
In 2001, 38 people were killed when a three-member JeM squad blew up a car outside J&K’s Legislative Assembly. The toll in Thursday’s attack exceeded the fatalities inflicted by militants in Uri, in 2016, when 19 armymen were killed near the Line of Control.
The JeM carried out its first-ever car bombing in Kashmir in 1999, outside the Badamibagh Cantonment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the attack despicable and asserted that the sacrifices of security personnel would not go in vain.
He also spoke with the home minister and other top officials in the wake of the attack.
“Attack on CRPF personnel in Pulwama is despicable. I strongly condemn this dastardly attack. The sacrifices of our brave security personnel shall not go in vain,” he tweeted.
He said the entire nation stood shoulder to shoulder with the families of those killed. He also wished speedy recovery of those injured.
Initial reports suggested that the vehicle used by the terrorists was a Mahindra Scorpio.
Home Ministry sources said that terrorists triggered the car bomb while the convoy of 78 CRPF vehicles was driving through the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Goripora area. The stretch on which the incident occurred had been sanitized earlier in the morning, and authorities have termed it as a “serious breach” of security.
Photographs showed charred remains of at least one vehicle littered across the highway, alongside blue military buses as black smoke billowed into the sky.
The bus that was hit was carrying 39 personnel. Bullet marks on the bus indicated that more terrorists may have fired at the convoy from hiding after the explosion.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi said he was deeply disturbed by the “cowardly attack” on the CRPF convoy. “My condolences to the families of our martyrs. I pray for the speedy recovery of the injured,” he tweeted about the Pulwama attack.
The National Investigation Agency is likely to probe the attack along with the state police. A fully equipped NIA team will set off for Kashmir tomorrow morning to assist the Jammu and Kashmir Police in their investigations. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will also visit Srinagar tomorrow to review the situation.
The scale of this terror strike has exceeded even that of the Uri attack on September 2016, when four heavily armed terrorists targeted an army brigade headquarters — causing 19 deaths. The Indian army had responded with a cross-border surgical strike in which several enemy installations were reportedly destroyed.
This is the worst terror attack to take place in Kashmir since the start of the century. On October 1, 2001, three terrorists had rammed a Tata Sumo loaded with explosives into the main gate of the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar — killing 38 people.