Jaish-e-Mohammed claims responsibility for Pulwama attacks

Banned terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has claimed responsibility and identified suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar as the one who carried out the attack on Thursday In an unverified ten-minute video recorded before the attack, Dar also mentions that many more people like him were ready to 'follow the same path'.

JeM was reactivated in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014, a year after the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The group had constituted a special 'Afzal Guru squad' to avenge his hanging.

In 2017, the group emerged as a leading force on the militant landscape after armed forces killed over 20 top commanders of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. With their resurgence, police said IED blasts and Fidayeen attacks were likely to return to scene. Commanders such as Mufti Waqas, Khalid Bhai and Noor Muhammad Tantray helped JeM return and carry out high-profile attacks in Pulwama district, BSF camp outside Srinagar Airport and Lethpora CRPF installation. In 2018, police managed to kill top commanders, including Mufti Waqas, Yasir, Ali Bhai and two nephews of the group’s Pakistan-based chief Maulana Masood Azhar. The police claimed that the group was crippled. Police officials said the resurgence of JeM in Kashmir was masterminded by Nasrullah Mansoor Khan Langrial, who was in jail in India for 18 years and repatriated to Pakistan in 2011. Since its inception in 1998, JeM is said to have carried out several attacks such as the one on Parliament in 2001 and Pathankot Air Force station in 2016.

“They continue to remain a major threat as they always have the ability to shock the system. And Thursday’s attack proved it again,” a senior police official told ET.