India on the 12th of December, decided to formally ask the Pakistan Government to share the details about the terrorists behind the 2019 Pulwama attack.
On the 14th of February, 2019, a terrorist attack which targeted a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy killed 40 CRPF officials.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) prepared a formal judicial request or Letter Rogatory (LR) and sought information about 7 perpetrators.
All the terrorists are identified as Maulana Masood Azhar, his brothers Abdul Rauf Asghar and Ibrahim Athar, and his cousin Ammar Alvi and three Pakistanis who came to India to execute the attack, Ibrahim Athar’s son Umar Farooq, Kamran (both killed in encounters with security forces after the Pulwama attack) and Ismail alias Saifullah.
A source close to the development said Ismail is believed to be hiding in Kashmir.
After the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) would approve the prepared LR, the official letter would be sent to the Pakistan Government.
A senior government official who wished to be anonymous said, “It’s first such judicial request being sent to Pakistan in the Pulwama attack seeking its cooperation (sic.)”
A MHA official, on condition of anonymity said, “A strong judicial request, equipped with irrefutable technical, material and circumstantial evidence, is being sent to Pakistan. We hope that instead of sheltering them, Pakistan provides evidence and takes action against the Jaish (JeM) chief and his family members.”
Apart from whereabouts of Azhar, Asghar, Athar and Alvi, India is seeking details of communications between them and the others, including WhatsApp chats, voice notes and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls made from and to Pakistan, and information on persons seen in photographs and videos recovered from the phone of Umar Farooq , showing different stages of preparation of the Pulwama attack.
The Government of India (GoI) also decided to seek information on the GPS locations extracted from Farooq’s phone as well as details of payments worth Rs. 10 lakh made into his accounts in Meezan Bank and Allied Bank in Pakistan.
These aforementioned data was recovered by the NIA during an investigation of the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.
On the 25th of August 2020, the NIA filed a detailed 13,500 page charge sheet naming all seven Pakistanis including Jaish e Mohammed (JeM) chief, Masood Azhar, and 12 others for the Pulwama attack.
Stay tuned for further updates.
