THE BOMBMAKER OF PULWAMA

The inside story of how the National Investigation Agency cracked a blind case and exposed how the bombmaker guided by Pakistan-based handlers was the lynchpin of the Pulwama terror strike

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

THE SCENE OF THE CARNAGE wreaked by the terror attack in Pulwama on the afternoon of February 14, 2019, was worse than in a horror film. Burnt human body parts and mangled steel lay strewn across the Jammu-Srinagar segment of National Highway No. 44 that cuts through the Pulwama district of south Kashmir. In one of the worst terror strikes in the erstwhile state, 40 CRPF personnel traveling in a convoy were slaughtered when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into the bus they were in. The Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) immediately claimed responsibility for the strike and released a pre-recorded video of the purported suicide bomber as he announced his motives for the deadly plot. The fidayeen attack pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of war, with the air forces of both countries conducting airstrikes on each other’s territory—for the first time since the 1971 war.