Chandigarh CFSL burns midnight oil, nails slain terrorists' link with Pahalgam

CRUCIAL BREAKTHROUGH

- Naina Mishra

It was around 10 pm (Monday) when the Chandigarh Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) director Dr Sukhminder Kaur received an important call from power corridors in New Delhi.

She was told to assemble her ‘A-Team’. The assignment was big. A package was arriving from Srinagar on a special flight that would land around midnight. On board were weapons seized from three terrorists gunned down in the Dachigam encounter. The job was clear: Find out a link between the slain terrorists and the Pahalgam attack.

What followed was a night of frenetic activity which saw forensic experts working against the clock, test-firing weapons, examining ammunition and analysing ballistic evidence. At the crack of dawn, around 4.45 am, they were ready with the report, clearly establishing that the weapons recovered from the three slain terrorists were the same that were used in the April 22 dastardly attack that left 25 terrorists and a local dead.