Pulwama attack: NIA takes over

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday took over the probe into the February 14 terror attack in Pulwama from the Jammu and Kashmir police, officials said.
The agency has re-registered the case and formed a team to investigate the terror strike in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed, an NIA spokesperson said.
The state police had registered a case at the Awantipora police station on February 14 after a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a CRPF bus, which was part of a 78-vehicle convoy carrying over 2,500 personnel on their way from Jammu to Srinagar.
The NIA has already gathered explosive material from the blast site in Lethpora in Pulwama district of south Kashmir and has been involved in the questioning of around a dozen people detained by police following the bombing, officials said.
The agency has also met senior police, intelligence and army officers to gather whatever evidence they have, they said. The NIA will probe the planning and execution of the terror attack, the second such in three decades of militancy in the state.
In 2000, a 17-year-old Kashmiri boy had blown himself outside the Srinagar-based army cantonment in year 2000, killing two Army men. On Monday, three Jaish terrorists were killed in a 16-hour operation in Pulwama’s Pinglan area, 12 km from the spot of the February 14 attack.
Soldier, injured during encounter, dies
A soldier, who was injured during an encounter last week at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, has succumbed to injuries, a defence official said Wednesday. Naik Sandeep Kumar, who was injured in an anti-militancy operation on February 12 in Pulwama, succumbed at 92 Base Hospital here on Tuesday, the official said. A local militant was killed and another soldier died in the encounter. Army paid tributes to Naik Kumar at a solemn ceremony at Badamibagh here on Wednesday.
The mortal remains of the soldier were then sent to his native place in Haryana’s Faridabad. (PTI)