The National Investigation Agency on Thursday arrested a youth from Budgam in connection with the 2019 Pulwama attack case in which about 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
NIA spokesman in a statement said that in the continuing investigation of the Pulwama attack case, the investigating agency today arrested “one more accused namely Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25) son of Abdul Khaliq Rather, a resident of Futlipura, Charar-e-Shareef, Budgam, Jammu & Kashmir.”
Iqbal, the spokesman said, had “facilitated the moment of Muhammad Umar Farooq, the JeM militant and key conspirator in that case.” Farooq along with others had assembled the IED used in the attack.
The statement said that Iqbal had been under judicial custody since September, 2018 in another Jaish-e-Mohammed related case investigated by the NIA.
“As such, he was produced by the jail authorities before the NIA Special Court, Jammu today and was taken into 7 days’ NIA custody for his interrogation.
“Initial examination has revealed that Iqbal was in constant touch with Pakistan-based leadership of Jaish-e-Mohammed and was in communication with them over secure messaging applications.
“Iqbal was part of the ‘transportation module’ of Jaish-e-Mohammed militant organisation,” the statement said.
With this arrest, the NIA has so far arrested six persons accused in this case. Investigation in this case is in progress.